But less than a quarter hour later, another pair of feet sped up the steps. This time it sounded as if someone were attempting to split the door with a battleaxe! Hahrteeos was in a towering rage when he opened the door.
But this caller was not a mercenary. He was, rather, Stavros Klahreedees, Warder of the South and Hahrteeos’s military, if not exactly social, equal, so there was nothing to do but invite him in and proffer wine. While the Warder of the East was filling his associate’s goblet, more sets of big feet stomped up and past his door, but he ignored them.
The short, skinny, pockfaced visitor removed his gilded helm and laid it on a marbletopped table before he accepted, tasted, and savored a goblet of the wine. “Ahhh,” he sighed. “You certainly know how to live, my dear. Would that I could afford such a home away from home, such civilized delights, such fine wines . ..”
“You will,” Hahrteeos assured him, smilingly. “You will yet, once we’ve cleared the heathen from these lands of ours. Why, Lord Myros says .. .”
“Your pardon, please, love.” The caller, with a wrinkling of his brows, set down his silver goblet. “Your pardon, but that brings me to my reason for being here. I received word, a few minutes agone, that the Lord Drehkos has commanded all gates closed immediately. That farce at the palace is done. The pigs got away from the guards by seizing and holding the Holy Skiros and Lord Myros and they must not be allowed to escape the city.
“Would you like for me to issue the necessary orders?” he asked considerately. “After all, darling, you are hardly garbed for a stroll on the walls.”
Hahrteeos smiled. “How thoughtful, dear Stavros. I appreciate such kindness.”
Setting his helm back on his head, Stavros turned to open the door. Taking the pullring in hand, he pulled, but the door failed to budge. Several more pulls and the addition of his other hand produced no better results. Then his bigger, heftier host took his place, but the stubborn portal failed to yield to him either.
Stavros stamped his small foot in exasperation. “What’s wrong with the cursed thing? We’ve got to do something, you know. Those pet pigs you command are stupid enough to let the butterhaired heathens ride out of our city without a by-your-leave!”
“Patience, patience.” Hahrteeos patted his guest on the shoulder. “With all of the damp weather we’ve had, the door or the frame has probably just developed a warp, that’s all. Not that I’ll not have a few larcenous carpenters well striped for it. But there is another way to reach the guardroom. Here, I’ll need your help.”
Between them, the two warders managed to get an old, heavy wooden ladder from behind the wall hanging which had concealed it; then wrestled it across to the center of the room, raised it, and wedged the upper tips of its up-rights into ceiling grooves provided for the purpose.
Hahrteeos stepped back, breathing heavily. “These ladder and trapdoor arrangements are how they got from one level to another in the ancient days, before the outside stairway was built. See those two round holes up there? Put your fingers in them and slide the panel to the right and you’ll be in the middle of the guardroom.”
The boy Peeos had pulled a satin sheet over his nakedness when the caller had been admitted, turning his face to the wall and lying absolutely motionless. His master’s temper was hair-triggered and terrifyingly unpredictable. The tiniest word or gesture could draw down his wrath and savage cruelties. Peeos wanted no more scars, so he took no chances. But the sounds of the raising of the ladder piqued his curiosity. He slyly turned his head and watched from beneath lowered lids.
Stavros mounted the ladder until he could reach the fingerholes and followed Hahrteeos’s instructions. The long-unused panel was difficult at first, but he finally managed to get it out of the way. Then he climbed a couple of more rungs and his head, arms, and shoulders were in the guardroom.
Peeos and Hahrteeos heard him give his order; next he shouted something, then started a scream which suddenly ended in an odd gurgle. His legs commenced kicking and his arms came back into view, twitching strangely; it appeared that he was suspended by his head alone. It was so for but a brief moment, then legs and arms and body crashed down onto Hahrteeos’s fine carpet, soaking it with fantastic quantities of blood.