The Return of Tharn Part 7

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hers was the beauty famous across half a world]

CHAPTER IV

THE SEEDS OF TREACHERY

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Otar, a warrior in the service of Vokal, a powerful and high-ranking n.o.bleman of the city of Ammad, was violently unhappy this night. His sandaled feet beat an angry rhythm against the pavement in front of the arched opening in the high stone wall about his master's estate. Thirty paces one way, an about face executed with the military precision Vokal demanded of his guards, then thirty paces back again, spear held rigidly across his tunic-clad chest.

The velvety blackness of a moonless night weighted the street and matched his mood--a blackness only intensified by the feeble yellow rays of a lantern in a niche above the gate. Silently he cursed the captain of the guards who had demoted him to night sentry duty, then he cursed Vokal for his mad judgment in picking so heartless a captain to begin with.

There was a sound reason for Otar's unhappiness. Only the day before he had taken a mate--the incomparable Marua, daughter of one of Vokal's understewards--Marua, whose exquisite blonde beauty and matchless form had brought her a host of male admirers, many of them in high positions in Vokal's service. Among them was Ekbar, captain of the n.o.bleman's guards; and therein, Otar knew, lay the reason why he was walking a midnight post outside Vokal's sprawling estate. The thought of his lovely new mate alone in his snug apartment in the guard's quarters while he paced away the hours brought a fresh flood of curses to his lips.

"Greetings," said a hoa.r.s.e whispering voice behind him.

Otar, startled, whirled and leveled his spear in one rapid motion. "Who speaks?" he growled.

An indistinct figure, m.u.f.fled to the chin in a black cloak, was standing in the street only a foot or two beyond reach of the questing spearhead.

"Fear not," said the harsh voice. "It is I--Heglar, n.o.bleman of Ammad. I am here to hold an audience with the n.o.ble Vokal. At his own invitation.

Here." He held out his hand from under the cloak and something gleamed from the center of his palm in the faint light. "Examine this by the rays from yonder lantern."

Cautiously, his heavy spear ready in his right hand, Otar took the object and backed away until he could see it clearly. His careful maneuvering was in line with orders, for attempts at a.s.sa.s.sination were fairly common among Ammad's n.o.bles in their ceaseless efforts for power second only to Jaltor himself, king of all Ammad.

A single glance was all Otar needed. It was Vokal's personal talisman: a small square of gold bearing on one side a peculiar design cut in the soft metal. No humblest warrior in all Vokal's vast retinue who did not know that design and his duties when faced with it.

He returned the talisman to the man who called himself Heglar and stepped back, bringing his spear sharply to a saluting position. "You may pa.s.s, n.o.ble Heglar. This path will bring you to a side door of Vokal's palace. The guard there will see to it that you are taken to him."

Vokal stood on a small balcony of stone outside his private apartment on the fourth level of his huge, many-roomed palace. He was a tall slender graceful man in his early fifties, with a narrow face, small cameo-sharp features and a languid almost dreamy quality in his movements and expression. Prematurely gray hair waved back from a brow of cla.s.sical perfection, and the hand he lifted to smooth that hair was narrow and long fingered and beautifully kept. He was wearing the knee-length tunic common to all men and women of Ammad, but his was of a better weave, its belt of the same material was a full two inches wider and trimmed with the purple of Ammadian royalty.

From this elevated position he was able to look out over the northern section of the city of Ammad--a vast orderly array of box-like stone buildings, some gray and some white, rising one to three floors above the streets. Fully five miles from where Vokal stood was the northern section of the great gray wall of stone encircling the city, and the buildings became smaller and simpler in design the nearer they were to that wall.

A man's position in Ammad was determined by how near the city's center his dwelling stood. At the metropolis' exact center was the mammoth palace of Jaltor, king of Ammad and supreme ruler of a vast country of jungle, plain and mountain extending a moon's march in all directions.

Like Vokal's own palace, Jaltor's rose from the crest of one of the city's five hills; but the king's, in addition to being at the exact center of Ammad, stood on the highest of them all. It could be seen from the windows on the opposite side of Vokal's palace--the princ.i.p.al reason his personal quarters were here. Sight of that huge sprawling pile of white stone, its roof six levels above the ground, was a constant source of irritation to him.

A sound of soft knocking from behind him aroused Vokal from his reverie, and he turned unhurriedly and re-entered the room.

The knocking was repeated. Vokal sank gracefully into an easy chair covered with the soft pelt of Tarlok, the leopard, crossed his shapely bare legs and studied the effect with approval.

Again the sound of knocking, a shade louder this time. "Enter," called Vokal around a yawn which he covered with the tips of two fingers.

A door opened, revealing the rigidly erect figure and carefully expressionless visage of an officer of the palace guard.

Vokal concluded his yawn. "Yes, Bartan?"

"The n.o.ble Heglar is here, Most-High."

"Excellent! Permit him to enter immediately."

The guard executed a sharp quarter turn and stepped back, allowing a man swathed to the chin in the voluminous folds of a black cloak to push past him into the room.

"Greetings, n.o.ble Vokal." The words came out in a hoa.r.s.e croak that grated against the host's sensitive ears.

"Greetings, n.o.ble Heglar." Vokal's smile seemed even dreamier than usual. "Remove your cloak, please, and be seated.... Bartan, tell a slave to bring us wine."

"At once, Most-High." The guard withdrew, closing the door softly.

Vokal's gray-blue eyes went to his guest and he smiled blandly. "I trust all is well with you and the members of your family, n.o.ble Heglar."

Stripped of his cloak, Heglar was revealed as a man of extraordinary thinness and considerable age. The p.r.o.nounced hollows in his cheeks and a thin nose the dimensions of an eagle's beak, together with the rocky ridge of an underslung jaw, gave him an emaciated look. But his body was straight as a young sapling, his shoulders for all their boniness were surprisingly broad, and his light blue eyes were alert and piercing.

He ignored his host's solicitous inquiry concerning his family and bent and unknotted the thongs of his heelless sandals. Kicking them off he leaned back in his chair and, sighing with relief, placed his bare feet on a low stool in front of him.

If he caught the faint wrinkle of disgust about Vokal's shapely lips he ignored it. "You'll forgive an old man for humoring his feet," he croaked. "I'm not accustomed to long walks these days."

"By all means give them comfort."

"I tried to learn from your messenger the reason behind your asking me here tonight. He would tell me nothing--simply gave me your message, handed me your emblem piece--" he dug a hand into a pocket of the tunic, took out the square of gold and handed it to Vokal--"and left without another word."

"You could hardly expect one of my men to do otherwise," Vokal said frostily.

"One never knows." The old man settled himself more comfortably in his chair. "I was curious and a little doubtful at the interest of the third most powerful man in all Ammad--especially when his interest concerns the most impoverished and least influential n.o.ble of that same country."

There was a soft knock at the door and a slave girl slipped in, placed a tray of wine and two goblets on a low table between the two men, and went out as silently as she had entered.

Heglar's eyes followed her trim figure until the gently closing door shut off his view. "Believe me," he said, watching Vokal fill the two goblets, "there was a day I had slaves like that one. Many slaves--and more warriors than any n.o.ble in all Ammad. Only old Rokkor himself, Jaltor's father, had more of them."

He sighed gustily. "But that's all in the past now. My only regret is that I must leave my young mate and our two children with little more than a roof above their heads when I die."

"Your love for the gracious and beautiful Rhoa is well known throughout all Ammad," Vokal murmured, handing his guest one of the filled goblets.

The old man gulped a third of its contents before taking the container from his lips. "And why shouldn't I love her?" he demanded harshly.

"Thirty summers my junior, lovely enough to have her pick of men--and she chooses me. Forty summers I spent with my first woman--and what a sour-faced old hyena _she_ was--and not a child to show for it. Now we have two, Rhoa and I--and I have nothing to leave them but a miserable hovel in place of the palace I once owned."

Vokal sipped daintily from his goblet and let the garrulous old man ramble on. Let him go on bemoaning his lowly position and living over his past glories. Every word of it would make the old one more agreeable to Vokal's proposition.

The nostalgic refrain went on until Heglar had emptied his first gla.s.s of wine and extended it for a second helping. This time he spilled a few drops on the floor as a voluntary offering to the G.o.d-Whose-Name-May-Not-Be-Spoken-Aloud--a tribute given usually only during formal dinners--gulped down several swallows of the alcoholic grape beverage, then turned those sharp eyes on Vokal.

"But," he said hoa.r.s.ely, "you didn't ask me here to talk of the old days. What do you want of me, n.o.ble Vokal?"