The Queen of Zamba

V.

Hasselborg, reading the letter through again, did a slow burn and suppressed an impulse to crumple the letter and throw it across the room. That dirty little— Then his sense of humor came to his rescue. The fishes answered with a grin, "Why, what a temper you are in!" And hadn't he been up against this sort of thing often enough not to let it get his goat, or whatever they had in lieu of goats on Krishna?

So, Gois had been getting ideas from Hamletl Hasselborg shuddered to think of what might have happened if he'd handed the letter to the dasht without reading it first.

What now? Gallop back to Novorecife to denounce Gois? No, wait. What had possessed Gois to do such a thing? The man had seemed to like him, and he didn't think Gois was off his wavelength. It must be that Hasselborg's presence on Krishna threatened Gois' interests; just how would transpire in due course. If so, if Gois were involved in some racket or conspiracy, his superiors like the pompous Abreu might be also involved. In any case, these Brazzies, while good fellows for the most part, would stick together against a mere Americano do Norte.

Could he forge a new letter? It would take a bit of doing, especially since he was not sure that his written Gozashtandou would fool a bright native. By consulting his dictionary, however, and experimenting with a pencil eraser, he found that he could erase the words for "spy" and "ill" and substitute "artist" and "good" for them. He did so, folded the letter, and tied it up. Then with the candle he melted gobs of sealing wax on the ribbon where it crossed itself and used the plaster molds of the original seals to stamp new impressions on the wax just like the old.

Before he mounted his noble aya and galloped off in all directions, however, a little reflection was in order. He went to work with needle and thread on the cuts in his coat left by the affrays of the previous day while he pondered. Since Gois had tried this treacherous trick, he had probably also lied about the direction in which Fallon had gone. As Hasselborg could neither be sure of the direction nor return to Novorecife for more instructions, he would have to do it the hard way. He would have to make a complete circuit of the Terran outpost: rivers, mountains, bandit-infested swamps, and all, investigating all the routes radiating out from Novorecife until he picked up the trail of the fugitives. Of course, if his circuit failed to find the trail, he would have a good excuse to—stop it! he sternly told himself. This is a job.

Meanwhile he had better try the dasht, as originally intended, on the chance that he might be able to pick up a lead at the court. Then a quick getaway with an introduction to some bigwig in Hershid…

A brisk, cool wind flapped the pennons on the spires of the onion-shaped domes of the palace and drove great fleets of little white clouds banked deep across the greenish sky. This green-and-white pattern was reflected in puddles around the palace gate. The wind also whipped Hasselborg's cloak as he stood talking to the sentry at the gate. The guard said:

"His High-and-Mightiness will take your letter within, and in an hour he'll come back to tell you to come round tomorrow to learn when the dasht'll give you an audience. Tomorrow he'll tell you the schedule's not made up for the next ten-night, and to return next day. After more delays, he'll tell you to be here twenty days from now. So ye'll just sit and drink until your money's gone, and when the day arrives ye'll be told that at the last minute they gave your time to some more worshipful visitor, and ye'll have to begin over, like Qabuz in the story who was trying to climb the tree for the fruit and always slipped back just afore he reached it. I envy you not."

Hasselborg jerked the strap of his wallet so that the coins inside jingled, saying: "D'you suppose a little of this might help, if you follow me?"

The sentry grinned. "Mayhap, so that ye know how to go about it. Otherwise ye'll lose your coin to no advantage—"

The guard shut his mouth as the black-clad major-domo waddled back to the gate, wheezing: "Come at once, good Master Kavir. The dasht will see you forthwith."

Hasselborg grinned in his turn at the sight of the guard's drooping jaw and followed his guide across the courtyard and through the vast entrance. They passed Krishnans of both sexes in bright clothes of extreme cut, the women in gowns like those of ancient Crete on earth, and walked through a long series of halls dimly lit by lanterns held in wall brackets in the form of scaly, dragonlike arms. Occasionally a page whizzed by on a scooter.

Hasselborg was beginning to wish for a bicycle when they halted at the entrance to a big official-looking room. At the far end he saw a man talking to another who sat on a raised seat—the dasht, no doubt. The major-domo whispered to another functionary. Other Rüzuma sat at desks along the walls or stood around as if for want of anything better to do.

The standing man bowed, put on his hat, and went over to one of the desks to talk to a man there. Then a drum rolled briefly, a horn went blat, and the functionary at the door cried:

"Master Kavir bad-Ma'lum, the distinguished artist!"

Who ever said he was distinguished? thought Hasselborg. Maybe they were trained to do that to im-press the yokels. During the long walk, the figure of the dasht grew larger and larger. Hasselborg realized that he was a big fellow indeed, in all directions, with plump ruddy features and bulging green eyes behind thick-lensed spectacles; except for the glasses, altogether like the Krishnan version of a jolly medieval baron.

When Hasselborg reached the end of the line down the middle he doffed his hat, knelt, and cried: "I abase myself before Your Altitude!"

Evidently he had done it right, for Jam bad-Kone said: "Rise, Master Kavir, and advance to kiss my hand. With this recommendation from my good friend Master Julio, all doors shall be open to you. What's your business in Rosid?"

Jam's hand was noticeably dirty, so that the thought of kissing the germ-infested object almost made Hasselborg squirm. Still, he managed the ceremony without a visible tremor, saying:

"I have some small skill at portrait painting, may it please Your Altitude, and thought you or some of your court might like their pictures painted."

"Hm-m-m. Have you mastered the new ertso style?"

"I'm tolerably familiar with the methods of the Ertsuma, Your Altitude."

"Good. I may have a commission for you. Meanwhile feel free to frequent the court. By the way, how's your hunting?"

"I—I've had but small experience—"

"Excellent! My gentlemen pine for amusement, and you shall attend my hunt on the morrow. If you're truly not good at it, so much the better; 'twill afford the rest of us some honest laughter. Be at the lodge an hour before sunrise. It's been a pleasure meeting you."

Hasselborg gave the formula and backed along the line until he came to the crossline that indicated that he could turn and walk out fowards. As he did so, the drummer gave five ruffles and the bugler a toot after each. The doorman shouted:

"A message from His Supreme Awesomeness, the Dour of Gozashtand!"

Hasselborg stood aside to let the messenger by, then went in search of the Charon who had brought him in. He walked slowly, partly to appear at ease, and partly to watch the others to observe how they behaved. There was even a remote chance of stumbling upon Fallon and Julnar; at least one should keep one's eyes open…

He got lost for a while, wandering from room to room. In one room a pair of bare-breasted women were playing Krishnan checkers while other people kibitzed; in another, a group of Krishnans seemed to be rehearsing for a play. Finally Hasselborg entered a room where Krishnans were snaffling food from a buffet table. He tried some of the stuff cautiously, although the heavy perfume used by the Krishnans kept his appetite down.

"Try some of this," said his neighbor, a man in white satin. "You're the portrait painter, aren't you?"

"Why yes, sir, how did you know?"

"Gossip, gossip. My good sir, with neither war nor jury duty at the moment, how else can one occupy one's time?" Presently they were in friendly chit-chat about superficialities.

"I'm Ye'man," the Krishnan explained, as if everybody should know the patronymic and titles that went with his given name. "This ugly wight on my right is Sir Archman bad-Gavveq the glider champion. Paint him not; 'twill curdle your pigments, as the salt demons curdled the Maraghe Sea in the myth. You should hear Saqqiz read his poem on the theme; a masterpiece in the old epic style—"

When he could get a word in, Hasselborg asked: "Who's the lady in the transparent blue outfit with hair to match?"

"That? Why, that would be Fouri bab-Vazid, of course. You know, old Haste's niece. Could you not tell by the Western hue of her hair? There are vari-ous stories of the whys and wherefores of her staying here; whether that she's enamored of our good dasht, or promoting her uncle's cult, or spying for the dour—But you'll hear all that in due course. You'll be in on the hunt? We should have a good fall, not like last time, when the field crossed the reach and the drum led porridge up the chimney—"

Since his companion's speech seemed to have become suddenly unintelligible, and since mention of hunting reminded him that he had preparations to make, Hasselborg excused himself and sought the exit. He found the major-domo in a kind of sentry box just inside the main entrance to the palace, whence he could keep an eye on the gate.

He said: "Thank you for your courtesy," and dropped a couple of silver karda into the man's hand. As the latter's expression implied that he'd guessed the size of the tip about right, he continued:

"I should like to ask you some questions. The dasht just invited me to go hunting tomorrow, and being new here and no hunter anyway, I don't know how to go about it. What do I need, and where's this lodge, and what's he going to hunt?"

"You'll need a hunting suit, sir, which you can get any good tailor to make you, though he'll have to hasten. His Altitude will probably hunt yekis, since the pair he kept for games died but lately. As for the lodge—"

Hasselborg copied down the directions, thinking that to one who had hunted the most dangerous game, man, riding out and spearing some poor animal would seem pretty stupid. However, orders were orders.

At the appointed hour, Hasselborg presented himself at the dasht's hunting lodge, ten hoda outside the city. The rest of the previous day he had spent buying himself a hunting outfit and a saddle and bridle for Faroun, and moving his gear to another and he hoped a more reputable inn within the walls.

The hunting suit he had obtained ready-made from the Rosido. This swank establishment had also tried to sell him a wagonload of other equipment: a short hunting sword, a canteen, and so on, all of which he had refused. The suit was bad enough—an affair of shrieking yellow satiny material with indecently tight breeches, which made Hasselborg feel as if he were made up to play the toreador in Carmen.

Hasselborg heard the racket in front of the lodge long before he reached the spot. The gentlemen were sitting on their ayas in the half-light, drinking mugs of kvad and all talking at once. It did Hasselborg little good to listen to them, because he found that hunting enthusiasts used a vocabulary incomprehensible to outsiders.

Other characters ran about afoot in red suits, some struggling with a pack of six-legged eshuna the size of large dogs but much uglier. Somebody pressed a mug of kvad upon Hasselborg, who downed half of it before he had to stop to keep from gagging. The dasht, trotting past, shouted:

"I'll watch you, master painter! If you play not the man, I can always feed you to the yeki, ha ha ha!"

Hasselborg smiled dutifully. A group of servitors were wrestling with a great net and a set of poles that went with it; another pair was lugging out a rack in which were stuck a couple of dozen long lances. (They must import timber for their bows and spears, thought Hasselborg; this country seems to have few decent trees.) As the workmen set up the rack in front of the lodge, the hunters began guiding their mounts past it to pick out lances. As Hasselborg snatched his, he heard the dasht shouting behind him:

"… and if I find some knave's slain our quarry without absolute necessity, I'll do to him what I did to Sir Daviran—"

Somebody blew a horn that sounded full of spit. The mess of men and animals pulled itself into formation and streamed out onto the road—eshuna and their handlers first, then hunters with their lances, then more servants with the net and other equipment like gongs and unlit torches.

The parade stretched itself out over a longer and longer piece of road as the eshuna pulled away from the hunters and they from the slower assistants in the rear. Hasselborg rode silently at a trot, his sword banging against his left leg. It seemed an hour, although the sun had not yet risen.

"A good rally," said a vaguely familiar voice. Ye'man, his smorgasbord acquaintance of the day before, pulled up alongside. "Let's hope the ball scrambles not in the beard."

"Yes, let's," said Hasselborg, not having the faintest notion of what the man meant. The loud voices died away, leaving only the drumming of hoofs, the rattle of equipment, and the occasional mewing of the eshuna up front. Hasselborg, whose riding muscles had never got properly hardened at Novorecife, found the whole thing very tiresome.

As the sun came up in the egregious glory of a Krishnan sunrise, the hunt left the road and headed up a shallow valley. Hasselborg, in his first taste of cross-country riding, found that he had to pay full attention to simply staying in his seat. As the bigger animals of his fellow-hunters were pulling ahead, he spurred his aya to an occasional canter to keep pace.

On they went, up one gentle slope and down another, over cultivated fields—which would not be of much use to their owners thereafter—and through brush. The hunt came to a low stone wall. Eshuna and aya flowed over it in graceful leaps—except Has-selborg's aya, which, having been trained for road work only, refused the jump, almost spilling its rider. As the rest of the party began to leave it behind, the animal galloped in a wide curve around the end of the wall and scurried to catch up. Hasselborg swore under his breath.

Next time he had to detour around a fence which the rest jumped. This was getting more tiresome every minute, though no doubt his aya showed better sense than those that let themselves be forced to jump.

A horn blew raucous notes up front, and the eshuna gave a weird howl. Hasselborg could have sworn they howled in parts. Everybody broke into a run. Now Hasselborg found himself really falling behind. Another detour, around a wall, put him back among the servants.

At the next obstacle, he spurred his mount right at a fence, holding the reins tightly to keep it from turning, and letting go at the last minute as he'd been taught. The aya hesitated, then jumped. While Hasselborg went up with it all right, he kept on rising after the beast had started down, with disastrous results. In his fall, he caromed off its rump into the moss.

For an instant he saw stars. The stars gave place to the bellies of the servants' ayas leaping the wall after him. They looked as though they were coming right down on top of him with all six hoofs. Somehow they all missed him.

Then as the universe stopped whirling, he climbed to his feet. A sharp stone had bruised his fundament; he had bitten his tongue; his pants were burst open at the right knee; his sword belt had somehow got wound around his neck; and altogether he was not feeling his best.

The servants were disappearing over the next rise, and the notes of the horn and the weird howl of the eshuna died in the distance.

"Give me an automobile," he muttered, picking up his lance and limping toward his aya. Faroun, however, wanted a rest and a quiet graze. It stopped eating as he neared it, rolled an indignant eye, and trotted off.

"Come here, Faroun!" he said sternly. Faroun walked a little farther away. .

"Come here!" he yelled, thinking: / said it very loud and clear; I went and shouted in his ear… but no heed did the beast pay. Hasselborg was tempted to throw a stone at the perverse creature but refrained for fear of driving it farther away.

He tried stalking. That did no good either, for the aya looked up between mouthfuls of moss and kept a safe distance between itself and its owner. Perhaps he would just have to walk the animal until it tired. He grimly plodded toward it.

A Krishnan hour later, he was still at this forlorn pursuit, when something erupted out of a little bushy hollow with a frightful roar and charged. Hasselborg had just time to swing the point of his lance toward this menace before it swerved and leaped upon the truant Faroun. There was a crunch of neck bones, and the aya was down with the newcomer standing over it. Hasselborg recognized the animal from descriptions as a yeki, the very beast they were after—a brown furry carnivore about the size of a tiger, but resembling an overgrown mink with an extra pair of legs to hold up its middle.

For a few seconds, it stood watching Hasselborg and making guttural noises, as if wondering whether to drag off the dead aya or to try to dispose of this other prey, too. Then it slithered forward towards the man.

Hasselborg resisted the impulse to run, knowing that such a move would bring it on his back in a matter of seconds. He wished harder than ever for a gun. Since wishing failed to produce one, he gripped his lance in both hands and stepped towards the beast, shouting:

"Get out of here!"

The yeki advanced another step, growling more loudly. Presently Hasselborg, still shouting, had the lance point in the creature's face. As he thought of trying for an eye, the yeki reared up on its four hind legs and batted at the point with its forepaws. Hasselborg sent a jab into one paw, whereat the beast jumped back a step, roaring furiously.

Hasselborg followed it, keeping his spear ready.

How long could he keep this up? There was little chance of his killing it singlehanded…

Then the howl of the eshuna came across the downs. The hunt was flowing past behind a nearby rise. Hasselborg shouted:

"Hey! I've got him!"

This was perhaps a debatable point, and in any case he did not seem to have been heard. He screamed:

"Over here! Yoicks, tally-ho, and all that sort of thing!"

Somebody swerved over the crest of the rise, and then in no time they were all pounding towards him. The yeki began to slink off, snarling right and left. The eshuna swarmed around the yeki, howling like banshees but not closing, while their quarry roared and foamed and made little dashes at them.

Then the servants unfolded the net, and four of them, still mounted, hoisted it by the corners on poles as if it were a canopy. They dashed forward and dropped the net over the yeki, who in another second was rolled up in it, chewing and clawing at the jneshes in a frenzy of rage.

"Good work!" roared the dasht, clapping Hasselborg on the back so hard as almost to knock him down. "We'll have our game now after all. Your mount dead? Take mine. Ao, you!" he shouted at a servitor. "Give Master Kavir your aya. You, Kavir, keep the beast with my compliments, for the manful part you've played."

Hasselborg was too conscious of his bruises to worry about how the servitor should get back to Rosid. He salvaged his saddle, mounted, and rode home with the rest, acknowledging their praises with smiles but saying little. When they got back to the road, they passed a big bishtar wagon driven by men in Jam's livery, evidently to bring home the captive.

The dasht told him: "We're having an intimate supper this night; third hour after sunset. But a few friends—you know, people like Namaksari the ac-tress and Chinishk the astrologist. Come and we'll talk of that portrait, will you?"

"I thank Your Altitude," said Hasselborg.

Back in Rosid, he spent some time window shopping. Although he knew better than to load himself down with more chattels than he absolutely needed, the temptations of Batruni's unlimited expense account proved too great. He arrived back at his hotel bearing an umbrella with a curiously wrought handle, a small telescope, a map of the Gozashtando Empire, and an ugly little ivory god from some backward part of the planet. When he got home—after wasting another hour by getting lost in the crooked streets—he felt sticky and suspected himself of being stinky as well, not have had a bath since leaving Novorecife.

When he asked the landlord about baths, the latter referred him to a public bathhouse down the street. He went down to have a look at the place, identified by a sea shell big enough for a bathtub over the door. He paid his way in, then found to his dismay that the bath customs of Ruz were much like those of Japan. While as an ex-married man he had no strong inhibitions along that line, a look at the male Krishnans convinced him that he'd never pass as one under those circumstances. For one thing, Krishnans had no navels.

He returned to his inn and told the landlord: "Sorry, chum, but I just remembered—I'm under a religious penance not to bathe in public. Could you furnish me with a tub and some hot water in my room?"

The landlord scratched the roots of his antennae and reckoned he could.

Hasselborg added: "Also I should like some—uh—" What was the word for "soap"? "Never mind; I'll tell you later." He climbed the stairs on aching feet to consult his dictionary in private, learning that there was no such word in Gozashtandou.

Evidently the stuff had not yet been invented. No wonder the Krishnans used perfume!

The scullery maids who arrived in a few minutes with tub, brush, and buckets of hot water showed an embarrassing interest in their guest's eccentricity, wanted to scrub his back, and had to be curtly dismissed. He'd have to depend upon a prolonged soak and a vigorous scrub to dislodge dirt and deadly germs. No more soapless expeditions to strange planets for him, even if he had to smuggle the stuff past the Viagens' vigilance!

As soon as the water had cooled to a bearable temperature, he lowered himself into it as far as he could go and settled the back of his head against one of the handles with a sigh of relief. Boy, that felt good on his poor beat-up feet! With a glance at the door to make sure the bolt was home, he burst into song. He had just gotten to:

"He knew the world was round-o, He knew it could be found-o—" when a loud knock interrupted him.

"Who's there?" he said.

"The Law! Open up!"

"Just a minute," he grumbled, getting out of his tub and trying to dry himself all over at once. What was he getting into now, in the name of Ahuramazda?

"Open right away or we'll break the door!"

Hasselborg groaned internally, wrapped the towel around himself, and slid back the bolt. A man in black entered, followed by two others in official-looking armor.

The first said: "You're arrested. Come."