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“They’ll turn up, Porenn,” Yarblek was assuring Kheva’s mother. “Barak just got bored, that’s all.”
“I wouldn’t be so concerned if he’d gotten bored by himself,” Queen Porenn replied, “but the fact that this boredom seems to be an epidemic worries me. Barak’s companions aren’t the most stable men in the world.”
“I’ve met them.” Yarblek grunted. “You might just be right.” He paced up and down for a moment. “I’ll have our people keep an eye out for them.”
“Yarblek, I’ve got the finest intelligence service in the world.”
“Perhaps so, Porenn, but Silk and I have more men than you do, and we’ve got offices and warehouses in places Javelin hasn’t even heard of.” He looked at Vella. “Do you want to go back to Gar og Nadrak with me?” he asked.
“In the wintertime?” Porenn objected.
“We’ll just wear more clothes, that’s all.” Yarblek shrugged.
“What are you going to do there?” Vella asked. “I’m not really very interested in sitting around listening to you talk business.”
‘ ‘I thought we’d go to Yar Nadrak. Javelin’s people don’t seem to be having much luck finding out what Drosta’s up to.” He broke off and looked speculatively at Queen Porenn. “Unless they’ve picked up something lately I haven’t heard about yet,” he added.
“Would I keep secrets from you, Yarblek?” she asked with mock innocence.
“Probably, yes. If you’ve got something, Porenn, share it with me. I don’t want to make the trip for nothing, and Yar Nadrak’s a miserable place in the winter.”
“Nothing yet,” she replied seriously.
Yarblek grunted. “I didn’t think so. Drasnians look too much like Drasnians to be able to move around in Yar Nadrak without attracting attention.” He glanced at Vella. “Well?” he asked.
“Why not?” she agreed. “Don’t take this personally, Porenn, but this project of yours—trying to turn me into a lady-is starting to distract me just a (ittle. Would you believe mat yesterday I left my room with only one of my daggers? I think I need some fresh air and stale beer to clear my head.”
Kheva’s mother sighed. “Try not to forget everything IVe taught you, Vella.”
“I have a very good memory, and I can tell the difference
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between Boktor and Yar Nadrak. Boktor smells better, for one thing.”
“How long will you be gone?” Porenn asked the rangy Yarblek.
“A month or two, I’d imagine. I think we’ll want to go to Yar Nadrak by a roundabout route. I don’t want to announce to Drosta that I’m coming.”
“All right then,” the queen agreed. Then she thought of something. “One last thing, Yarblek.”
“Yes?”
“I’m very fond of Vella. Don’t make the mistake of selling her while you’re in Gar og Nadrak. I’d be very put out if you did that.”
“Who’d buy her?” Yarblek responded. Then he grinned and skipped out of the way as Vella automatically went for one of her daggers.
Eternal Salmissra looked with some distaste at her current Chief Eunuch, Adiss. In addition to being incompetent, Adiss was slovenly. His iridescent robe was food-spotted, and his scalp and face were sparsely stubbled. He had never, she concluded, been more than an opportunist, and now that he had ascended to the position of Chief Eunuch and felt more or less secure there, he had given himself over to the grossest sorts of debauchery. He consumed staggering quantities of some of the most pernicious drugs available in Nyissa and frequently came into her presence with the vacant-eyed shamble of a sleepwalker. He bathed infrequently, and the combination of the climate of Sthiss Tbr and the various drugs he used gave his body a rank, almost rancid, odor. Since the Serpent Queen now sampled the air with her flickering tongue, she could not only smell him but also taste him.
He groveled on the marble floor before the dais, delivering a report on some unimportant matter in a whining, nasal voice. Unimportant matters filled the Chief Eunuch’s days. He devoted himself to petty things, since significant things were beyond his capabilities. With the mindless concentration of a man with severely limited talents, he expanded the trivial out of all proportion and reported it as if it were of earthshaking importance. Most of the time, Salmissra suspected, he was blithely ignorant of the things that should really be receiving his full attention.
“That will be all, Adiss,” she told him in her sibilant whisper, her coils moving restlessly on her divanlike throne.
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“But, my Queen,” he protested, the half-dozen or so drugs he had taken since breakfast making him brave, “this matter is of utmost urgency.”
“To you, perhaps. I am indifferent to it. Hire an assassin to cut off the Satrap’s head and have done with it.”
Adiss stared at her in consternation. “B-but, Eternal Sal-missra,” he squeaked in horror, “the Satrap is of vital importance to the security of the nation.”
“The Satrap is a petty time-server who bribes you to keep himself in office. He serves no particular purpose. Remove him and bring me his head as proof of your absolute devotion and obedience.”
“H-hishead?”
“That’s the part that has eyes in it, Adiss,” she hissed sarcastically. “Don’t make a mistake and bring me a foot instead. Now leave.”
He stumbled backward toward the door, genuflecting every step or two.
“Oh, Adiss,” she added, “don’t ever enter the throne room again unless you’ve bathed.”
He gaped at her in stupid incomprehension.
“You stink, Adiss. Your stench turns my stomach. Now get out of here.”
He fled.
“Oh, my Sadi,” she sighed half to herself, “where are you? Why have you deserted me?”
Urgit, High King of Cthol Murgos, was wearing a blue doublet and hose, and he sat up straight on his garish throne in the Drojim Palace. Javelin privately suspected that Urgit’s new wife had a great deal to do with the High King’s change of dress and demeanor. Urgit was not bearing up too well under the stresses of marriage. His face had a slightly baffled look on it as if something profoundly confusing had entered his life.
“That is our current assessment of the situation, your Majesty,” Javelin concluded his report. “Kal Zakath has so reduced his forces here in Cthol Murgos that you could quite easily sweep them into the sea.”
“That’s easy for you to say, Margrave Khendon,” Urgit replied a bit petulantly, “but I don’t see you Alorns committing any of your forces to assist with the sweeping.”
“Your Majesty raises a slightly delicate point,” Javelin said, thinking very fast now. “Although we have agreed from the
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start that we have a common enemy in the Emperor of Mallorea, the eons of enmity between the Alorns and the Murgos cannot be erased overnight. Do you really want a Cherek fleet off your coast or a sea of Algar horsemen on the plains of Cthan and Hagga? The Alorn kings and Queen Porenn will give instructions, certainly, but commanders in the field have a way of interpreting royal commands to suit their own preconceptions. Your Murgo generals might very well also choose to misunderstand your instructions when they see a horde of Alorns bearing down on them.”
“That’s true, isn’t it?” Urgit conceded. “What about the Tolnedran legions then? There have always been good relations between Tolnedra and Cthol Murgos.”
Javelin coughed delicately and then looked around with some show of checking for unwanted listeners. Javelin knew that he must move with some care now. Urgit was proving to be far more shrewd than any of them had anticipated. Indeed, he was at times as slippery as an eel and he seemed to know instinctively exactly the way Javelin’s fine-tuned Drasnian mind was working. “I trust this won’t go any further, your Majesty?” he said in a half whisper.
“You have my word on it, Margrave,” Urgit whispered back. “Although anyone who takes the word of a Murgo—anda member of the Urga Dynasty as well—shows very poor judgment. Murgos are notoriously untrustworthy, and all Urgas are quite mad, you know.”
Javelin chewed on a fingernail, strongly suspecting that he was being outmaneuvered. “We’ve received some disquieting information from Tol Honeth.” “Oh?”
“You know how the Tblnedrans are—always alert for the main chance.”
“Oh, my goodness, yes.” Urgit laughed. “Some of the fondest memories of my childhood come from the times when Taur Urgas, my late, unlamented father, fell to chewing on the furniture when he received the latest proposal from Ran Borune.” “Now mind you, your Majesty,” Javelin went on, “I’m not ‘Suggesting that Emperor Varana himself is in any way involved m this, but there are some fairly high-ranking Tolnedran nobles whoVe been in contact with Mal Zeth.” “•:. “That’s disturbing, isn’t it? But Varana controls the legions. -As long as he’s opposed to Zakath, we’re safe.” “That’s true—as long as Varana’s alive.”
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“Are you suggesting the possibility of a coup?”