"Meddle again, and I'll kill you." Korendir ducked aside and strode on through the gate.
"Damn your arrogance!" Haldeth flung after him.
"After this, I'll think twice before I trouble to climb stairs and light any hell-begotten signal fire!"
The echo of Korendir's receding steps was all the answer he received.
Haldeth slammed his fist into stone. "Get yourself killed, then," he shouted into the empty night. "I'll worry less, for one thing, and a woman or two in this rock pile would make winters a sight more bearable."
Grumbling over bruised fingers, the smith stumped off to gather firewood. If Korendir chose to wait in the open until the next ship happened by to answer summons from Whitestorm, only a fool would try to dissuade him. The master was rotten company most any time, with his queer distaste for talk; when he wished, he could be vicious as the deadwood in Thornforest. As Haldeth lugged logs in a sling on his back up the spiraling stair to the upper battlement, he wished upon his companion a case of boils in places a maiden would blush to contemplate.
XIII. City of the Sultan
Ye crowned prince of Rachad's seed beware the Light-Eyed Man, He of foreign birth and breed thy bane lies at his hand. Datha's Scourge, the Light-Eyed's deed before which none shall stand.
Seven months passed, unrelieved by seasons. The sun shone hot over southern lands, and reflections like chipped diamonds flashed off the breakers which rolled from the Tammernon Sea; carried on winds from higher latitudes, ships made port from Fairhaven. The sovereign of South Englas had acquired the habit of gazing out his casements toward the harbor. Alert for the clutter of servants and heraldry that accompanied mercenary captains, the king was unprepared when at last the man he had summoned arrived on South Englian shores.
Confronted in his chamber of audience by a black-clad northerner with a grim face and impeccable manners, he bade the visitor rise. He found his person touched by an unfathomable gray gaze.
When the stranger spoke, his words were devoid of boastfulness. "I am Korendir of Whitestorm, Your Royal Grace. I've come to engage the Dathei, and to bring your daughter home."
Touched by deep disappointment, the King of South Englas regarded the mercenary before his dais. The sailors had neglected to mention that the man possessed rare coloring; in South Englas folk were seldom born with light eyes; and never with hair the rich, red-brown of spring honey. Aware that his silence had lasted discourteously long, the king cleared his throat. Decency demanded a response.
"I will pay your expenses." The king toyed regretfully with his signet ring, then sighed in outright unhappiness. He looked again at the man who waited, too still, before his throne. "For honor's sake, I dare not bind you to contract. Datha prophecy holds that a light-eyed man will destroy the sultan's dynasty. Sight of your face would seal your death in that land. My realm has endured grief enough from such enemies without adding murder to the score."
Korendir of Whitestorm laughed, but without any resonance of humor. His hand rested quietly on his battered scabbard, empty, since the sentries in the hallway disallowed weapons in the presence of royalty. But even swordless, his presence felt dangerous, and the scars which traced the backs of his knuckles marked him out for a killer. "Compensation for my troubles shall not be necessary, Your Grace. If the Scourge of the Dathei is to be a man with gray eyes, that's my advantage, not my bane."
As leary of conflict as his door guards, the King of South Englas yielded with gratitude. The sailors from Fairhaven had spoken high praise for the Master of Whitestorm's talents. If half what they claimed was true, the Datha prophecy might have been made against this same mercenary's arrival. Prepared for demands of troops and immediate quantities of weapons, the king was startled enough to question when Korendir asked instead after the camel trader who had delivered Iloreth's message from Telssina.
The bronze-haired swordsman inclined his head with chilly courtesy. "Your Grace, when men at arms are needed, I'll ask for them. Until then, I work alone." Korendir bowed and stepped back. From the seneschal's hand he accepted the camel trader's address. Then, without pause for refreshment, rest, or ceremony, he left the palace.
* * *
Since the sale of the king's finest ruby, Elshaid the camel trader disdained to deal in livestock. He inhabited a mansion on a quiet street and lived in indolence, attended by slave girls garnered through dealings with black market smugglers from Arhaga. The illicit possession of flesh made Elshaid leary of visitors. He paid an ex-assassin to guard his premises; another, all muscle and loyalty, both answered and safeguarded his door. The services of these brutes cost dearly. The former trader was therefore irate when a black-clad, sword-bearing northerner arrived unannounced in his bath chamber.
"I'm here to demand your service on the king's behalf," the intruder snapped out in clipped accents. He had bronze hair, light eyes, and an air charged as a stormfront with the promise of trouble.
Immersed like a walrus in hot water, suds, and rare oils, Elshaid roared a blasphemy. He heaved himself erect, and the slave girls who tenderly sponged his neck became drenched by the sloshed contents of his tub. Though their silken garments became plastered to their nubile skins, the man in the doorway remained coldbloodedly undistracted.
Elshaid concluded that northerners must love boys before he barked a command to his women. They shed perfumed towels and sponges and fled through a carved screen behind the bath. The erstwhile camel trader glared at the stranger and coughed soap from his mustache. "Get out."
"Not yet." The swordsman set his hip against the nearest panelled wall, braced up one foot, and regarded his length of bared steel. The edge was sharpened razor thin, and well nicked with use.
The bath water abruptly seemed cold. Defenseless and nakedly fat, Elshaid cupped both hands at his crotch. "How did you get past my servants?"
The stranger smiled in a manner that chilled. "The guard and that ox at the door? They dream the visions of the faithful, unconscious. Both will recover with headaches."
Elshaid understood when he was disadvantaged; experience at swindling Datha horsemen had taught him not to buckle to threats. "Who are you? What do you want of me?"
"I'm called the Master of Whitestorm." The swordsman did not look up from his weapon. "And I need to know how you got a certain square of silk from Her Grace, the Princess of South Englas.
"Oh, that." Elshaid restrained an impulse to smile with relief that his slave girls were not at issue after all.
But the northerner was quick; he saw the glance his victim darted toward the screen. Before the merchant could reply, he added, "The welfare of your comforts depends on how carefully you tell the truth."
Now Elshaid's smile turned fatuous. He considered himself wronged; in good faith he had recommended this mercenary to his king, only to have the man burst uninvited into the most private sanctum of his home. Elsaid phrased his answer in vindication, certain the Lord from Whitestorm could gain nothing of value from the information. "I received Her Grace's message from one of the sultan's porters. He was a slave loaned to Del Morga to convey gifts of state to the port."
Korendir absorbed this without setback. "Then I'll need you to assemble a caravan to admit me to the sultan's city of Telssina."
Elshaid shot splashing to his feet, his shrivelled manhood forgotten. "Impossible!"
Korendir measured the camel trader from head to dripping privates. His hand tightened ominously on his steel. "Don't claim you have no experience with contraband," he cautioned. "Unless your slave girls are gifted at swordplay, your survival is a forgone conclusion."
Scarlet with indignation, Elshaid bent over. He groped a fallen towel from the floor beneath the screen and sullenly began rubbing off soapsuds. "The sultan's defenses include a double ring of walls!" He twined the towel around his girth, plainly unhappy about the force required to make the two ends meet. "And I'm no conjurer, to arrange for a spell of concealment. Telssina's guards never slack duty. They take pleasure in flaying the
skin off anyone in the company of a man with frog-spawn eyes like yours."
"Then that's a problem you'll have to solve quickly," the northern mercenary said. The last of his tolerance vanished. "Get dressed!" He snapped his blade aside, and with a move most enviably fast, hooked and tossed back a silk robe which lay heaped on a nearby chest. "Ready or not, we leave for Telssina by noon."
* * *
Five days later a packtrain carrying scented oils, brocades, marten furs, and rare wines approached Telssina from the northeast. It had originated from the sultan's port of Del Morga and gone on to cross the desert under pitiless late summer sun and curtains of ochre dust. The heat had turned the pelts rancid. Poorly cured to begin with, their taint threatened to spoil the cloth goods, and in a gesticulating display of temper, the merchant who stood to lose profits scrambled from his litter in a haste that nearly tore his trappings. His camels succumbed to riled nerves and spat on his silk over-robes.
Elshaid's cheeks flushed purple. "Fetch out those Neth-blighted furs!" he screeched to his beast goad, a turbaned man with a squint that all but buried gray eyes. The merchant took pleasure in his ranting. "Then find some cord. Tie the pelts on your head, and bear them so until we arrive in Telssina's great market." Here Elshaid smothered a spiteful chuckle. Under his breath he added, "And, Neth hear my plea, may the stink of three dozen dead martens addle the functions of your brain."
The gobbets of beast spittle had soaked in, leaving a residue of hay shreds. While the king's precocious mercenary applied himself to bundling smelly furs, Elshaid howled for his body servant to unlash his chest of spare clothing.
The caravan moved on within the hour. Burdened by a headdress of corrupted skins, the camel goad eased his squint long enough to study the city of Datha's Sultan, laid out on the plain like a desert chiefs jewel in a setting of high stone walls. Sentries in plumes and scimitars guarded the five arched gates. Horsemen in double-file companies patrolled the outer perimeter throughout each hour of daylight; by night their numbers would be trebled, and archers would stand watch at fifty-foot intervals along the torchlit walls.
The camel goad reviewed these defenses with his eyes unreadably in shadow. As Elshaid's caravan approached the market gate, his sole concession to risk was to droop the furs lower on his brow, and to develop a hitch in his stride that required him to constantly watch his feet.
The camels bawled and halted, and stirred dust spread over a compound trampled bare of desert fern. Bronze-studded gates loomed overhead, and the towers on either side threw shadow in swaths across the earth. Beasts jostled and sidled against their halters to seek relief from the heat; only the half-wit wretch who managed them remained in the glare of the sun, pelts piled sloppily atop his head, and his camel goad looped at his wrist. He looked too lazy to present any bother. The guardsmen assigned to inspect caravans focused on the loud-voiced merchant who sweated through the labor of dismounting.
"Elshaid, by the Hells!" exclaimed the most seasoned of the guardsman. "Squandered thy fortune and had to retire to merchanting, I see."
"Certainly not." The fat man stuffed his handkerchief in his cuff. He straightened pearl-stitched lapels and tried through discomfort to look dignified. "This caravan carries an order for a favored customer."
Bristling with weapons, the guardsmen closed for a routine inspection of the goods. Elshaid dispatched servants to fetch out his lists.
"Special order smells spoiled to me," observed the officer who passed near the camel goad. "If furs constitute thy delivery, and if thy client is Lord Ismmail, thou wilt surely get thy butt bastinadoed."
Elshaid shrugged. "My client is not Lord Ismmail. These furs are bound for another, one I warned that this was not the acceptable season for buying pelts. Scarcity was sure to compromise the quality. Oh yes, I assured this much. But he stubbornly insisted." Smug now, Elshaid folded his hands on the dome of his belly. "Of course, I made the fool pay for his martens in advance."
The guardsmen chuckled their appreciation. "His persistence became thy good fortune, Elshaid?" teased the one who was an acquaintance.
"Just so." Elshaid waved to the wine tuns, carefully lashed under linens to keep off the sun. "Those, now, they're another matter. I brought several extras, for the sultan's guard to share among themselves."
The officer in command stiffened suspiciously. "We cannot drink wine while on duty. If thou thinkst—"
But the guard acquainted with Elshaid interrupted. "The merchant is wise to our laws. In the past we provided our address, and Elshaid delivered his gift to our dooryards."
Elshaid nodded with obsequious diffidence. "I trust such arrangement will be acceptable?"
At this, the sultan's faithful clustered about the merchant, who, after tedious rounds of repetition, collected directions from each guard. Beyond the compound, the next caravan in line was forced to wait. Driven to vociferous impatience, its head drover assailed the officer with imprecations. The guards stirred reluctantly back to duty. Since their captain suspected a bribe, they inspected Elshaid's wares meticulously, then left the camels to their bad temper. There remained only the beast goad's putrescent load of pelts. The man sat crouched with his eyes closed. The sultan's finest had been in shade long enough that the shift to full sunlight made them blink; by now, the stench of rotted furs had attracted a buzzing cloud of flies. The soldier commanded to take inventory was in no way inclined to duck down and peer beneath the bundle for a look at the face underneath; and the accounts tallied without discrepancy.
"Get ye on, then!" snapped the officer in charge.
As the guards passed by, the camel goad straightened indolently. He shuffled off to drive beasts, while with silent but profuse prayers to heaven, Elshaid heaved back into his litter and clucked his sour beasts to their feet. In shambling disarray, his caravan crossed through the arched double gateway of Telssina, and entered the bustling main street.
The thoroughfare was packed with palanquins, foot slaves, hand carts, and camels in caparisons and twisted silk bridles bearing wealthy trade magnates. Elshaid's packtrain jostled a path through the press, but his beast goad was given wide berth. In a city prided for cleanliness, where servants of the great lords burned incense on their balconies, the stink of bad furs stood out like a corpse in a flower bed. The caravan which included the bundle was shunned as if it carried leprosy. Embarrassed, and on edge lest he damage his reputation, Elshaid turned his pack train into a side street after the barest of prudent intervals. There, in the shadow of an alleyway, his camel goad shed his burden of pestilent furs.
"Let me be clear," whispered Elshaid, his damp brow furrowed in aggravation. "I cannot get you out of this city, and I'll not be responsible for your safety. If you're caught, I'll claim I never knew you."
Korendir unwound his turban, which reeked pervasively of dead skins. He shook loose bronze hair more pleasantly scented by the desert fern that had pillowed his head during camp in the open. "We never were partners in any case." He raked the camel trader with a gaze grim as granite, then tore a strip from the nearest bolt of brocade.
Elshaid winced, but dared not protest. He watched his contemptible camel goad bind his hair under cloth embroidered with peacocks that should have been sold to clothe a prince. Stung afresh by squandered profits, the merchant added, "I won't be smuggling Princess Iloreth out, not if you threaten to kill me."
Korendir's quick hands tucked and knotted his headdress as he answered. "That task, I entrust to no one."
Then, while Elshaid stood in straddle-legged defiance over a heap of spoiled furs, the mercenary commandeered two packbeasts in the king's name, and with them four tuns of rare wines. After that he stepped back without apology and vanished into the depths of the alley.
"Neth!" Elshaid twisted his rings in red-faced, impotent fury. "The gods of the Dathei should punish such arrogance." Murderously irritated, he kicked the furs left rucked at his feet. Flies buzzed; high overhead, a horn blew thrice from the timekeeper's tower. Three ho
urs remained before sundown. Then the sultan's edict which forbade strong drink was relaxed, but Elshaid would not be easing his losses by sampling the contents of his wares. Thanks to one insufferable mercenary, Elshaid-the-No-Longer-Retired was required to deliver the rest of his precious spirits to the homes of unappreciative guardsmen.
* * *
The Princess of South Englas awoke with a start in the locked chamber where she spent those nights she was free to sleep alone. Roused by a touch on her cheek, her frenzied effort to rise was caught short by a grip on her shoulder. A fast, implacable hand stifled the scream that arose from her lips.
"Your Grace," the man who held her whispered clearly. "Your royal father sends his love."
Iloreth choked back a second more agonized cry. She stopped struggling and looked up into eyes touched luminously silver by the moonlight let in by the narrow window overhead. Her message had reached South Englas; realization caused her to break her proud composure as she had not since she first lost her freedom. She wept, held lightly against the shoulder of the stranger sent by her father. Her tears soaked soundlessly into cloth spiced with the musk of desert ferns.
The man maintained his passionless embrace until she quieted. When her breathing steadied, he reached into his tunic and pulled forth a card marked with letters in the looped script of South Englas. This he laid at Iloreth's knee, providing the tongueless a means for accurate communication. Almost, the Princess wept afresh; yet gratitude came mixed with fear that the Sultan's guardsmen might snatch opportunity from her. Iloreth straightened and leaned into the moonlight that spilled in a square across her mat. Her greeting was nervously short.
Neth bless you, she spelled. You are the Scourge of the Dathei.
A brief, barely audible laugh answered her from the dark. "No," whispered the stranger. "I'm Korendir, summoned south from Whitestorm to take you home."