I went through the flung-open double-doors faster than a hare avoiding a hound. The two guards outside were left gaping. Straight down the corridor I hurtled and the furious and baffled shouts of Khonstanton and Ortyg spurred me on. Oh, yes, surely, I could have stayed in that close room of secrets and fought them and no doubt I’d have done for ’em into the bargain. But that would have been utterly foolish and stupidity of that kind formed no part of my plans.
Around the first corner I sprinted, skidding on a rug, regaining my balance and tearing on headlong.
Once I was fairly away from this high echelon area and among the maze of corridors and passageways and halls I could lose myself. These grandiose palaces of Kregen in general are honeycombed with secret passages and I’d used them before in my lurid goings on in that world four hundred light years from the planet of my birth. Now I had to use what skill I’d gained over the seasons to find a hidden entrance. And, by Krun, I had to find the damn thing quickly, very quickly indeed!
The state architect of the great deren in Vondium had taught me much and I’d developed the knack of looking out for the extra thickness of wall here or the oddly angled buttress there. Down half a dozen passages further on a door leading to a medium-sized chamber with dolphins as decoration was guarded by a Rapa leaning on his halberd. Before the feathered fellow had time to squawk he went to sleep standing up and as I eased him to the marble floor the thickness of the wall in which the door was set attracted my immediate attention.
Various protuberances in the carved and gilded foliage architrave merited further inspection. It was no use looking for a worn away knob. If you have a secret passage and wish to keep it secret then you do not advertise its presence. After a deal of pushing and pulling and pressing a nicely rounded dillope fruit, a juicy form of satsuma, yielded. There was no loud click; but a stem and branches revolved to disclose a narrow dark opening. Quick as a ferret down a rabbit hole I was in and the panel revolved shut at my back. Even without the Everoinye-bestowed lack-of-light vision, I could see by the aid of the pencil-thin shafts of radiance falling from various spyholes. Immediately I felt quite at home.
Although this was in the middle of the night the palace was astir like a disturbed ants’ nest. That, by Vox, was my doing!
Well, bad cess to all of them. I knew what I had to do. The how of it was the problem. Hyr Kov Brannomar would be well guarded.
In addition, and on Kregen it is a weighty matter, by Krun! I was in need of sustenance, both food and drink. Particularly a wet. Off I set along the runnels between the walls, looking out, going silently, directing my cautious steps in the general downward direction of the kitchens.
When by the smells I knew I was close it was also borne in on me that whilst food was prepared day and night, for guards, servants, slaves, this level of activity meant the whole place was aroused — aye! aroused and searching for me.
After a succession of store rooms I at last peered through a small hole into a kitchen. I say a kitchen, for undoubtedly there were more than one in such a large establishment. A rotund, buxom, sweating woman was unmercifully thrashing a scrawny knobbly-kneed lad who yelled blue murder.
Nonplussed I just stood for a moment, watching. Had that been a big man thrashing a young girl there would have been no problem. Oh, yes, I am well aware of all the contradictions in the contradictory nature of the fellow known as Dray Prescot. The girl or the lad could have done something so heinous that the punishment on the cruel world of Kregen was richly deserved. This strong woman with the bulging biceps was laying it on a bit thick, though. The lad was a mere bag of bones. The rolling pin being used on him would have laid out a zhanpaktun with a five-foot long pakai. So, being Dray Prescot and unable to stop putting my big nose into other people’s affairs, I pushed the lever and jumped into the kitchen.
My foot landed on something greasy and off I went, skidding across the floor with my arms waving about like a manic orangutan. A desperate clutch at a table served only to overset the lot and a cascade of pots and pans clattered to the floor.
“Lawks ’a mussy!” screamed the woman. She used a round Kregish phrase; the meaning was the same and then I’d skidded all the way and was wrapping my arms about her massive frame to try to keep my balance.
She dropped the lad. She did not drop the rolling pin.
The boy let out a single bellow and was off like a greyhound.
The rolling pin went up and came down and bounced most tellingly off my ear. So, to be in the fashion, for the uproar was splendid, I let out a tremendous yell — the confounded rolling pin hurt! — and span the woman about. She collapsed and then we were tumbling to the floor.
“Murder!” she screamed. “Help! Guards! Help!”
The lad was well away by now. There was nothing left here for me to do except try to avoid the frenzied flailing of the rolling pin.
Somehow or other, all mixed up with greasy and smelly aprons and voluminous petticoats, I staggered to my feet.
“Get off! Get off! Murder! Help!”
I, Dray Prescot, emperor, king, prince, lord of this and that, just ran.
Now I may only be an apim, a Homo sapiens sapiens, with a mere two arms and hands. In like circumstances my kregoinye comrade Fweygo, a Kildoi, would have done much better. As it was, I regained the shelter of the secret passage in the kitchen wall with a thick ham in one hand and a flagon in the other. The panel was closed by a smart doubling up so that my rear end clacked the door into place. I did not hang about.
These passageways were uniformly dusty, with spiders’ webs festooning everywhere and flang skins littering every nook and cranny. Perhaps Brannomar had no use for hidden corridors. I had. When I was a goodly distance away from the debacle in the kitchen I slumped down with my back wedged comfortably into a corner and started on the provisions.
What a night this was turning into! First it was rolling barrels and then it was rolling pins. What next in the rolling menagerie awaited me?
The ham was good, the wine poor. After a time I stood up and started off again. This time my way led upwards.
There is no need to detail all the passageways and crevices I essayed in my search. Suffice it to say that towards morning I at last reached my goal.
Breathing silently, I stared through a chink in the wall into Kov Brannomar’s retiring room. The place was furnished like a study, with well-filled bookshelves, desk, a comfortable chair, a lounging sofa, and a table at which sat Brannomar in person. I was unable to see the other end of the table from my point of observation and there were no other slits in the walls. I stood quietly watching and listening. Brannomar was speaking in a decisive, intolerant, almost menacing way.
“...you deserve to be calsany-whipped around the palace for your stupidity. Do you fully realize the damage you have caused?”
A woman’s voice answered. As she spoke she advanced into my view.
“For my children, kov! Only for them — please, you must believe me!”
“But I do not believe you.”
She wore a lounging robe of deep blue, gold trimmed with much lace. Her bright bold face, so much like a hawk’s, was now set in lines of desperation. She was pleading for her life. Her hands clutched the lace at her breast and her hair fell to straggle across her shoulders.
“Please, notor, I meant no harm to you! I swear it!”
“You may swear on all the gods in creation, my lady Vita; all the same, what you have done has created much mischief. The kingdom is like to fall. By Beng T’Tolin, woman, your selfish meddling has brought war!”
“But I did not want—”
“I know what you wanted, Vita. The Lord Jazipur was good enough for you when you married him. He is a fine upright man—”
“Yes!” she flared at him. “So upright he has no ambitions left!”
“He serves me and my kovnate and through me the kingdom. He well understands his position. I value him as a friend. But you—”
“I did not know that they would do such dreadful things!”
“Had you taken counsel of your husband you would have understood more of the realities of politics. As it is, your ambitious meddling is past the point where anyone may intervene. The die is set. There will be war, woman, a war you have created!”
She shrank away, seemingly at last conscious of the enormity of her treachery. I’d seen her in Khonstanton’s palace. It was not hard to guess what she’d been up to there. Any woman has the right to ambition and the right to want her husband to prosper. Destinies have been played out, empires risen and fallen on the desires of women. Men and women have no rights when they are born save those that lineage and civilization confer. Misuse brings tragedy. Poor Lady Vita had vaulted with her ambitions, and they had undone her.
They went on in much the same vein, arguing, recriminations and passionate defenses alternating, and the sense of much of it came clear.
Truth to tell, after a time I grew impatient with the pair of them. Brannomar was actually wrangling with the woman. This surprised me completely. Then, from what they said, I gathered the Lady Vita had once harbored ambitions to marry Hyr Kov Brannomar. He had refused her. She already had two children from an early marriage and this first husband had died. There was every reason to wonder if his death had not been accelerated by Vita. So she had married Brannomar’s trusted right hand man. Jazipur had Brannomar’s confidence and so far I judged that confidence not misplaced — save in this one instance of Jazipur’s marriage.
At last the hyr kov stood up. He placed both hands flat on the table and so stood, glowering down on the Lady Vita.
“I shall not decide your fate yet. I must speak with the Lord Jazipur. You must add to your crimes of treachery the pain you have caused a good and honorable man. Guards!”
In they came in their bronze and iron and they took the Lady Vita away. To her credit, the last I saw of her then, she stopped her sobbing and wailing. She stuck her chin out and that bold hawk-like face up, and she stalked away surrounded by guards armed and in armor.
And then, confound it! Brannomar took himself off after them.
I was left fuming in my hidey-hole.
The trouble now was — would the Star Lords regard all this intrigue as a legitimate part of the task assigned Fweygo and me? If they did not, then I could face being hurled four hundred light years back to languish on Earth until either they relented or were in need of my services once more.
As they say in the jargon of Clishdrin, I reviewed my options. Eventually I came to the conclusion my best course of action was to hang on here until Brannomar returned to his study. He must work in private in this comfortable snug on his state papers, and the situation now with war looming meant he would carry a heavy work load. I stayed put.
Naturally enough, being fallibly human, I fretted over this decision debating with myself if I wasn’t making a dreadful mistake. I shifted incautiously and a whole flood of dust and cobwebs fell about my head.
The clinging powdery dust got right up my hooter. I could feel the mother and father of a sneeze overtaking me. Scuttling like a demented crab I rushed off along the dark passage and then let rip with an almighty atishoo! Tears sprang to my eyes. I sneezed again. I sneezed half a dozen times, and then I swiped at my eyes and nose and felt better and so gingerly made my way back to my spyhole.
Brannomar was just turning around in my vision as I peered in. If he’d heard those gargantuan sneezes he gave no sign and in my agitated state I didn’t pick up just what he was doing. I reached for the lever and pulled, the secret panel slid open, and I tumbled through.
He was quick. Oh, yes, Hyr Kov Brannomar was no slouch when it came to swordhandling. The braxter ripped free of the scabbard and the point snouted towards me.
I opened my mouth ready to say something like: “All right, kov. Stand easy.” I opened my mouth all right and the sneeze roared up from the soles of my feet and through my shaking body and just erupted like a coruscating volcano. I sprayed everything in the vicinity. Water clouded my vision. Shaking my head and trying to get things in focus I was ready to try again when a gasp of utter astonishment burst from the side of the room I had not been able to see. Hands in the air I swung about.
The man who had just been ushered into the room, for the door was just closing at his back, wore sturdy buff clothes, the wide-shouldered jacket, the buff breeches and tall black boots I recognized immediately. His hand clasped the wide-brimmed hat with two slots cut in the forward brim and the jaunty feather was red and yellow. I knew him. He stared goggle-eyed at me. He knew enough not to go into the slavish full incline. That indignity had been done away with during my early days as Emperor of Vallia. He drew himself up to his full height.
“Majister!” said Elten Larghos Invordun na Thothsturboin. “By Vox! Majister!”