The Queen of Zamba

IX.

After sitting with his mouth open for a few seconds, the king jumped up with a yell. "That blundering fool! 'Tis just like him to descend upon me without an hour's warning! No permission, no invitation, no request, no nought—Ohe!" He looked keenly at Hasselborg, who had given up trying to make a sketch for the time being. "You, master painter, arrive one morning with a fine story of rescuing Haste's niece from robbers in Jam's demesne. Then at the close of that selfsame day comes Jam himself hot on the trail of an alleged fugitive. A singular coincidence, would you not say?"

"Yes, Your Awesomeness."

"Well, show him in, show him in! We'll soon get to the bottom of this coil." The king paced up and down. "I doubt not that the rescue took place even as stated, for my men questioned the survivors of that unlucky caravan at length. Still there's a mystery here; there's a mystery; there's a myst— Ah, my good vassal Jam!"

The Dasht of Rüz strode into the room, made the barest pretense of dropping to one knee in front of the king, and then went for Hasselborg with a roar, pulling at his sword. "You zeft! I'll show you to bribe your way out of my jail!"

Hasselborg, who was getting a little tired of hairbreadth escapes, looked around frantically for a weapon, since he had been required to check his sword before being closeted with the king.

Eqrar, however, took care of that. Placing one of the big rings on his fingers in his mouth, he blew a high, piercing whistle. Instantly a pair of inconspicuous little doors in the wall flew open, and out of each sprang a couple of guards with cocked crossbows.

"Stand, or you're a dead vassal!" squeaked the king.

Jam sheathed his sword reluctantly. "Your Awe-someness, my humble apologies for an irreverent intrusion. But by Qondyor and Hoi, 'tis not to be borne that this heap of foulness who calls himself a painter shall be allowed to encumber the earth with his loathsome presence any longer!"

"What's he done?"

"I'll tell you straight. He comes to me, pretending to paint portraits, and is welcomed as an old friend. What happens? Within the day I learn that he's no painter at all, but a spy from Mikardand sent to assassinate me. So, naturally, I fling him in pokey to be expended at the holy games. Then by some witchcraft he magicks the yeki so the beast won't eat him, and subsequently is spirited out of jail by a pair of fellow-desperadoes and disappears. Belike he corrupted someone in my service, or 'twould not have passed off so smoothly, though the villains all swear innocence and I can't hang 'em all in the hope of getting the right one."

"How know you he's a spy?" asked the king.

"My friend at Novorecife, Julio Gois, sent word. Here's his letter, see you, and here's another he sent with yon baghan who altered it."

Hasselborg broke in: "May it please Your Awe-someness, I'm not a Mikardandu, as you'll find out if you inquire there. I only stopped a night at Mishe on my way to Novorecife, since Mikardand is no place for an artist. At Novorecife I made Gois's acquaintance and asked for an introduction to somebody in Rosid; that's all I know about it. The reason the dasht is so sore is that I busted up his attempt to have the Lady Fouri kidnaped by his gang of tame bandits."

"What's this? What's this?" said Eqrar.

"Sure, he did it. She told me herself she left Rosid because he wouldn't let her alone, so he had her snatched, and I don't think because he wanted a partner to play checkers with, either."

"What about this, my lord Jam?" said the king.

"Lies, all lies," said the dasht. "Where's his proof?"

Hasselborg said: "I heard the robbers discussing the matter around their campfire. Bring some of them in and they'll tell you."

The king asked: "Where be these robbers now?"

"Hanged, every one of 'em," shouted Jam. "I chanced upon 'em whilst in pursuit of this wretch, and applied the high justice on the spot."

Hasselborg thought, I passed by his garden, and marked with one eye, how the Owl and the Pan'ther were sharing a pie— "Because they'd failed to get her as he ordered, or else to shut their mouths for good."

The dasht started to bellow obscenities, when the king said: "Peace, peace, peace, both of you. Now, here's a veritable puzzle. You, Jam, say that Master Kavir's a spy, though your only evidence is the word of the Ertsu Julio, which is inadmissible in Gozashtando law and worthless as a matter of general experience. Then you, sir painter, accuse my faithful vassal of suborning the abduction of the niece of the high priest of the Established Church for fell purposes—though the fellness of these purposes might be mitigated by the damsel's excessive beauty, which would rouse thoughts of love in the liver of the holiest eremite. Still, the chick's a favorite of mine, since I have no girl-children of my own, and therefore I'd take a grave view of the matter were it substantially proved. Yet your only proof is the word of men whose word would carry little weight were they alive and none at all since they're deceased.

"I could, of course, have both of you interrogated with hot pincers"—he smiled unpleasantly, whereupon both Hasselborg and Jam looked gravely respectful—"save that in my experience that treatment, while oft beneficial to the victim as well as edifying to the spectator, fails to elicit that for which we're most eager—to wit, the truth. What would you with this man, Lord Jam?"

"I would snatch him back to Ruz, Your Awesome-ness, to commute his sentence from death-by-beast to death-by-beheading, thereby showing my merciful nature, though I doubt he'll appreciate the change. If his magic'll glue him back together after his head's been separated from the rest of him, I'd say he'd earned his worthless life."

"But," cried the king, "how then shall my portrait be finished? From his sketch I can see that 'twill be the best ever made of me, which implies that, spy or no, he's a true artist even as he claims. No, no, no, Jam, you shall not take him away ere he's finished the great work; we owe that to the empire and to posterity!"

Jam chewed his lip, then said: "Could we not leave him here under guard long enough to complete the picture, and then slay him as he deserves?"

Hasselborg said: "Your Supremacy, d'you really think a man with my artistic temperament could give his best to his art with a death sentence hanging over him?"

"No, no, I see your point, Master Kavir, and moreover there's the matter of your charge against Jam—"

"You're not crediting these fantastic lies?" said the dasht.

"You will kindly not interrupt your sovereign. Tis a serious matter, Master Kavir, to level such a charge against an anointed dasht. But withal, your charge is as well-attested as his, which is to say not at all. Now, hear my judgment, both of you: You, Kavir bad-Ma'lum, shall remain inviolate at Hershid until the work be done. After that you may remain in this city, taking the hazard that Jam will return with evidence that would force me to give you to him; or you may leave, and in that case he may have you if he can catch you. You, Jam bad-Kone, abide by these conditions, and no sending of one of your ruffians to extinguish Master Kavir by stealth while he's in my territory. Should aught of that nature befall him, I'll know where to look. Seems that not fair?"

"Then," roared Jam, "there remains -but one course. Kavir bad-Matlum or whatever your name is, I declare you a knave, pervert, scoundrel, spy, coward, liar, and thief, and challenge you to disprove these assertions with weapons of war upon my person." With which the dasht pulled off his glove and threw it at Hasselborg.

The king sighed. "I thought I had everything arranged, and you do that. 'Tis true there's some question as to whether a person in Master Kavir's station be compelled to accept a challege from a gentleman, especially one of your not inconsiderable rank—"

"See the case of Yezdan versus Qishtaspandu, only last year," retorted Jam. "A professional artist is considered constructively a gentleman, and so may be challenged."

"Here, here," said Hasselborg. "We do things a little differently in Malayer. Somebody explain. Jam wants to fight me, is that right?"

"And how I do!"

"What happens if I don't feel like fighting?"

"Ha hah!" said Jam. "A thin-livered wretch, said I not? Already he seeks to crawl out. Well sir, in that case we inflict upon you, as stigmata of your cowardice, the five mutilations, beginning with your ears—"

"Never mind the rest. Do I get a choice of weapons?"

"Surely. Any weapon in the approved list—lance, pike, sword, dagger, battle-ax, mace, halberd, gisarme, flail, javelin, longbow, crossbow, sling, or throwing-knife; with or without shield, armored or bare, afoot or mounted. I'll take you on with any combination you care to mention, for you'll be the twelfth to try to stand against me. Twelve's my lucky number, you know."

Hasselborg, not thinking it necessary to ask what had become of the other eleven, got out his knuckleduster and showed it to the king. "Would this be allowed?"

"No, no, no!" said the latter. "What think you, that we're savages from the Koloft Swamps, to pummel each other with fists?"

"Then make it crossbows, unarmored, and afoot," said Hasselborg, who as an expert rifle shot figured that this weapon would give him the best chance. "You'll have to give me a couple of days to practice up."

"Accepted," said Jam. "A fine brabble 'twill be, with me the best crossbow-hunter in Rüz. Saw you my collection of heads?"

"You mean the ones on spikes over the city gate? Vulgar ostentation, I thought."

"No, fool, the heads of the beasts I've slain. Your Supremacy, let me urge that you set a guard over this scum, lest he steal away in the night."

"Fair enough," said the king. "Master Kavir, hear my royal command: That you move your gear forthwith to this the royal palace. I'll send men to help you move."

Hasselborg mentally added: To keep him from making a break for liberty.

Fouri's eyes widened with horror when Hasselborg told her what was up, and Haste seemed mildly distressed.

"A foolish business, dueling," said the priest. "The Council of Mishe condemned it in unequivocal terms. Although we of the cloth have long striven to convince the nobility of its sinful folly, they throw our own astrology back in our teeth, saying: won't the stars grant victory to him whose triumph is foreordained? Discouraging."

When he went to his room to pack, Fouri followed him, imperiously telling his pair of guards: "Stand you outside the doors, churls! I command!"

Either the guards thought better of picking an argument with so domineering a young lady, or they knew her as a privileged character. She threw herself on Hasselborg's neck, crying:

"My hero! My love! Can I do aught to save you?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact you can," he said. "Could you sew a pair of pads into the elbows of the jacket of my old suit?"

"Pads? Sew? What mean you?"

Hasselborg patiently turned the coat inside out and explained what he wanted.

"Oh, I understand now," she said. "A wretched seamstress I, but still I'll let none other do it, for then when you wear this jacket, the occult force of my love will flow through your veins and nerve you to deeds of might."

"That'll be nice," he said, folding his clothes on the bed.

"Oh, it will. And then at last shall I be avenged upon this filthy fellow." She stitched away clumsily for a while, then said: "Kavir, why hold you yourself aloof from me? You're colder than the great statue of Qarar in Mishe!"

"Really?"

"Yes, really. Have I not given you all the encouragement a decent maiden can, and more? Look you, Uncle Haste could join us tonight in a few words, and the king wouldn't boggle at my accompanying you to your new chamber in his palace. Then whatever ensued, we'd have a sweet memory to carry with us to our graves, be they early or late."

Hasselborg began to worry lest he say "yes" against his better judgment simply to end the argument. When he looked at her it took all his will power not to take her up on her offer. He would have done so had he been willing to discard his disguise. Of course there was Alexandra, but she was light-years away.

He pulled himself together. "I'm grateful for your regard, Fouri, but I don't anticipate an early grave; not this time anyway. Marriage is a serious matter, not to be entered into as a preliminary to a duel—"

"Then finish your sewing yourself, and I hope you prick your finger!" She threw the coat, needle and all, at his head, and stamped out, slamming the door.

Smiling wryly with a mixture of amusement, pity, and annoyance at the position in which circumstances had placed him, Victor Hasselborg picked up the jacket, donned his glasses, and began complying with her order. Between Haste's mercurial and amorous niece and the Lord of Ruz, he knew just how Odysseus felt in trying to steer between Scylla and Charybdis.

His move completed, Hasselborg spent a dismal evening. The guards whom the king had assigned to him had evidently received orders to stick like leeches. Although he would like to have mingled with the court and found out more about Zamba and its new rulers, the people proved unexpectedly impervious to the charm he turned on. He wondered if the presence of the guards at his elbow might not dampen conversation, until one of his victims set him right:

"Not that we esteem you not, Master Kavir, but that, should you succumb in the forthcoming contest, we'd have likely contracted some of your ill luck by fraternizing with a doomed man."

He retired morosely to his new room. Haste and Fouri—who had become the courteous hostess again—kept him company for a while, the former seeming distressed in his long-winded and ineffectual way.

"Officially, you understand," said Haste, "the Established Church discountenances magic. Still in such a case I might get in touch with one of the local witches, who'll put a spell on the dasht's bow—"

"Go right ahead," said Hasselborg.

"Not that I really believe in witchcraft," continued Haste, "but one can't deny that strange things do happen, not to be explained by ordinary philosophy, as the prince says in Harian's play—"

Finally Haste had to leave to check some astronomical observations, and took Fouri none too willingly along.

Left alone except for his ubiquitous guards, Hasselborg tried to read a Gozashtando book but soon gave it up. The curlicues were just too hard to puzzle out, especially since he did not want to betray his ignorance of the written language in front of the guards by using his dictionary. Moreover, the work itself seemed to be an interminable metrical romance, perhaps best comparable to the Terran epics of Ariosto and Vega Carpio.

He tried engaging the guards in conversation, finding them agreeable enough, but also that he had to do most of the talking. He dropped a few broad hints about his escape from the Rosid clink:

"… you know, I've been lucky in making friends in fixes like that, and happily I've been able to pay them back handsomely. The friend who helped me in Rosid will never want for anything again—"

One of the guards said: "Very interesting, sir, but that could never happen here."

"No?"

"No. Our dour be a shrewd judge of men, most careful to pick those for his personal guard who can't be bribed or corrupted."

He asked the other guard:

"Would you agree with that, chum?"

"Absolutely, sir."

Either he's equally honest, thought Hasselborg, or he's afraid to admit otherwise in front of his pal. If one could get him alone, then maybe—

But as time wore on, Hasselborg realized that he could not get either one of them alone, for they were under orders to watch each other as closely as they watched him.

Disgustedly he went to bed, revolving impractical schemes for talking Fouri, on a promise of marriage, into ordering these guards to look the other way while he bolted. He was still thinking thus when he fell asleep.

The next morning, Hasselborg went down to the royal armory to borrow a crossbow. He chose one that fitted his length of arm and whose steel bow was as strong as he could cock with a quick heave of both hands on the string. Then he went out to the exercise ground, where he understood the duel would be held the following morning.

The minute he appeared, an official-looking person rushed up. "Master Kavir, you may not bring that weapon hither now!"

"Huh? Why not?" A crowd with their backs to Hasselborg was watching something. Being taller than most of them, he soon made out that they were looking at Jam bad-Kone at target practice.

"Why, the rule! Ever since Sir Gvasten 'accidentally' skewered the Pandr of Lüsht with a longbow shaft while they were at friendly practice for, their duel, the dour has forbidden that two gentlemen under challenge should practice here at the same time."

"Okay; suppose you hold the bow until he's finished," said Hasselborg, handing over the weapon.

"Yes, yes, but I dare not let you promenade around here while he's armed; comprehend you not?"

"Oh, I'll be careful and not get close to him." Followed by his guards, Hasselborg strolled over to the crowd and watched quietly for some time before the other spectators became aware of his presence. Thereupon they turned heads to look at him. The dasht, seeing him also, flashed him a rousing sneer over his shoulder and addressed himself again to the target.

The system appeared to be that the duelist had to stand with an uncocked crossbow in his hands and his back to the target. On a signal given by a whistle, he snatched a bolt from his belt, cocked his weapon, whirled, and shot. The dasht's next bolt went through the man-shaped target in the heart region—that is, the Krishnan heart region, which was more centered than that of Earthmen—adding one more to a sinister constellation of holes in the cloth. Jam was obviously no tyro.

Hasselborg watched the dasht closely for hints on how to beat this game. He remembered reading a case years before at Harvard Law School on the subject of obsolete laws—about the Englishman who around 1817, losing a lawsuit, challenged his opponent to trial by battle and appeared in the lists on the appointed day with lance and sword, armed cap-a-pie and then claimed to have won his suit because the other litigant had not shown up. The lawyers scurried about frantically and found that the man had won his suit, and the next session of Parliament had to abolish trial by battle.

After an hour or so, the dasht quit and marched off, followed by the men-at-arms he had brought from Rosid. Several of the local gentry hung around, waiting to see Hasselborg perform.

Hasselborg, however, had no intention of making a fool of himself in front of company. He sat lazily on a bench and engaged his guards in conversation on the technical points of crossbowmanship, on the pretext that: "We do things differently in Malayer, but perhaps you local men have better ideas—"

Since the incorruptible whom he had approached without success the previous night proved an enthusiast, Hasselborg had merely to feed him occasional questions until the spectators, becoming bored, drifted off.

"Now I'll try a few," said Hasselborg, to whom the marshal had given back his bow after Jam had departed. "Remember that they use a different kind of bow in my country, so I shall make a few misses at first."

And a few clean misses he did make. The trouble with this thing was that it had no sights, but perhaps that could be remedied.

He asked: "Where can I get a couple of pins about so long, with round heads like so?" He indicated something on the order of a corsage pin.

"I can get you such," said the enthusiast, "for my sweetheart is maid to the Lady Mandai. Since I may not leave you, 'twill take some little time—"

Half an hour later, Hasselborg had his pins. He firmly pressed one into the wooden stock of the crossbow near the muzzle end, to one side of the bolt groove, and the other into a corresponding position to the rear. Then he made a few more shots, adjusting the pins until, from the official distance, he could make a clean hit by shooting with the heads of the two pins in line with the target.

"By all the gods," said the enthusiast, "what's this our good Master Kavir has done? By the nose of Tyazan, 'tis surely a new and deadly idea!"

"Oh, that's old stuff where I come from," said Hasselborg.

He was now confident that he could hit the target all right; the problem remained to keep the target from hitting him. Jam had done all his shooting from an erect position. "Do the rules require you to shoot standing?"

"What other position is there?" said the enthusiast.

The other guard said: "I've seen men shoot kneeling. In truth, the drillmaster the dour had before the present one taught sinking to one knee to shoot from behind a wall or other obstacle. That was before your time, Ardebil."

Hasselborg asked: "How about the rules?"

"I know of nought to prevent one from shooting from any position he likes," said the enthusiast. "For aught I know, 'tis legal to charge your foe and smite him on the pate with the stock of the bow."

Hasselborg cocked the bow and lay down prone, thankful for the pads in his jacket but also wishing the flagstones of the exercise court were cleaner. His shooting, however, became so good that the guards whistled their appreciation.

The enthusiast said: " Twere a chivalrous thing to warn the dasht of that which he faces."

"You wouldn't want to spoil his surprise, would you?" said Hasselborg.

Next morning, Hasselborg stood on the same flagstones, listening to the marshal intone the rules of the contest: "… and at the ends of the court your bows will be handed unto you. You shall stand facing the wall and making no move until the whistle. Then may you fight howsoever you will, and may the stars grant victory to the right."

The marshal was standing in back of a little wooden wall about a meter long and breast-high, behind which he could duck if things got too hot. He and the duelists were the only people in the court, although the palace windows, which surrounded the court on three sides, were full of faces. King Eqrar, High Priest Haste, Fouri—

"Stand back to back," said the marshal. "Now walk to the ends of the court: one—two—one—two—"

"Are you ready?"

Hasselborg stood facing the stone wall, gooseflesh on his back, into which back he more than half expected Jam to send an iron bolt any second. He was finding a formal duel harder on his nerve than he expected. A fight was one thing; he'd been in several on Earth that had resulted fatally for his antagonist. The first time it had given him the bleeps, but after that he'd taken it as a matter of course. Now the shivery feeling of his first lethal fight had come back. This standing up like a fool and deliberately risking—

The whistle blew piercingly. Hasselborg, tensed for action, dropped the nose of his crossbow to the ground, stuck his toe into the stirrup on the end, and heaved on the string. It came back with a faint sound into the notch. He snatched a bolt from his felt, whirled, and threw himself prone on his elbow pads, placed the bolt in its groove, and sighted on his target.

Jam bad-Kone was just sighting along his cocked crossbow as Hasselborg brought the heads of the pins into line with the shiniest of the medals on the chest of the dasht. Jam seemed to hesitate; raised his head for a second to look at the antagonist who had fallen down without waiting to be hit, then squinted down the stock of His weapon again.

Hasselborg squeezed the trigger. The stock kicked sharply and the bolt flashed away with a hum, rising and falling a few centimeters in its flat trajectory.

Then something exploded in Hasselborg's head, and the light went out.