finality in the voice of Joaquin Smith. “Long ago I swore to Martin Sair never to grant immortality to any who have not proved themselves worthy.” A note of sarcasm edged his voice. “Go prove yourself deserving of it, old man, in the few years left to you.”
Hull sniffed contemptuously. There seemed something debased in the old man’s whining before his conqueror. “The Princess Margaret?” he asked, and followed the guard’s gesture.
Upstairs was a dimly lit hall where another guard stood silently. Hull repeated his query, but in place of an answer came the liquid tones of Margaret herself. “Let him come in, Corlin.”
A screen within the door blocked sight of the room. Hull circled it, steeling himself against the memory of that soul-burning loveliness he remembered. But his defense was shattered by the shock that awaited him.
The screen, indeed, shielded the Princess from the sight of the guard in the hall, but not from Hull’s eyes. He stared utterly appalled at the sight of her lying in complete indifference in a great tub of water, while a fat woman scrubbed assiduously at her bare body. He could not avoid a single glimpse of her exquisite form, then he turned and stared deliberately from the east windows, knowing that he was furiously crimson even to his shoulders.
“Oh, sit down!” she said contemptuously. “This will be over in a moment.”
He kept his eyes averted while water splashed and a towel whisked sibilantly. When he heard her footsteps beside him he glanced up tentatively, still fearful of what he might see, but she was covered now in a full robe of shiny black and gold that made her seem taller, though its filmy delicacy by no means concealed what was beneath. Instead of the cothurns she wore when on the march, she had slipped her feet into tiny high-heeled sandals that were reminiscent of the footgear he had seen in ancient pictures. The black robe and her demure coif of short ebony hair gave her an appearance of almost nunlike purity, save for the green hell-fires that danced in her eyes.
In his heart Hull cursed that false aura of innocence, for he felt again the fascination against which he had steeled himself.
“So,” she said. “You may sit down again. I do not demand court etiquette in the field.” She sat opposite, and produced a black cigarette, lighting it at the chimney of the lamp on the table. Hull stared; not that he was unaccustomed to seeing women smoke, for every mountainy woman had her pipe, and every cottage its tobacco patch, but cigarettes were new to him.
“Now,” she said with a faintly ironic smile, “tell me what they say of me here.”
“They call you witch.”
“And do they hate me?”
“Hate you?” he echoed thoughtfully. “At least they will fight you and the Master to the last feather on the last arrow.”
“Of course. The young men will fight—except those that Joaquin has bought with the eldarch’s lands—because they know that once within the Empire, fighting is no more to be had. No more joyous, thrilling little wars between the cities, no more boasting and parading before the pretty provincial girls.” She paused. “And you, Hull Tarvish—what do you think of me?”
“I call you witch for other reasons.”
“Other reasons?”
“There is no magic,” said Hull, echoing the words of Old Einar in Selui. “There is only knowledge.”
The Princess looked narrowly at him. “A wise thought for one of you,” she murmured, and then, “You came weaponless.”
“I keep my word.”
“You owe me that. I spared your life.”
“And I,” declared Hull defiantly, “spared yours. I could have sped an arrow through that white throat of yours, there on the church roof. I aimed one.”
She smiled. “What held you?”
“I do not fight women.” He winced as he thought of what mission he was on, for it belied his words.
“Tell me,” she said, “was that the eldarch’s pretty daughter who cried so piteously after you there before the church?”
“Yes.”
“And do you love her?”
“Yes.” This was the opening he had sought, but it came bitterly now, facing her. He took the opportunity grimly. “I should like to ask one favor.”
“Ask it.”
“I should like to see”—lies were not in him but this was no lie—“the chamber that was to have been our bridal room. The west chamber.” That might be—should be—truth.
The Princess laughed disdainfully. “Go see it then.”
For a moment he feared, or hoped, perhaps, that she was going to let him go alone. Then she rose and followed him to the hall, and to the door of the west chamber.
BETRAYAL
Hull paused at the door of the west chamber to permit the Princess to enter. For the merest fraction of a second her glorious green eyes flashed speculatively to his face, then she stepped back. “You first, Weed,” she commanded.
He did not hesitate. He turned and strode into the room, hoping that the Harrier riflemen, if indeed they lurked in the copse, might recognize his mighty figure in time to stay their eager trigger fingers. His scalp prickled as he moved steadily across the window, but nothing happened.
Behind him the Princess laughed softly. “I have lived too long in the aura of plot and counterplot in N’Orleans,” she said. “I mistrust you without cause, honest Hull Tarvish.”
Her words tortured him. He turned to see her black robe mold itself to her body as she moved, and, as sometimes happens in moments of stress, he caught an instantaneous picture of her with his senses so quickened that it seemed as if she, himself, and the world were frozen into immobility. He remembered her forever as she was then, with her limbs in the act of striding, her green eyes soft in the lamplight, and her perfect lips in a smile that had a coloring of wistfulness. Witch and devil she might be, but she looked like a dark-haired angel, and in that moment his spirit revolted.
“No!” he bellowed, and sprang toward her, striking her slim shoulders with both hands in a thrust that sent her staggering back into the hallway, there to sit hard and suddenly on the floor beside the amazed guard.
She sprang up instantly, and there was nothing angelic now in ‘her face. “You—hurt me!” she hissed. “Me! Now, I’ll—” She snatched the guard’s weapon from his belt, thrust it full at Hull’s chest, and sent the blue beam humming upon him.
It was pain far worse than that at Eaglefoot Flow. He bore it stolidly, grinding into silence the groan that rose in his throat, and in a moment she flicked it off and slapped it angrily into the guard’s holster. “Treachery again!” she said. “I won’t kill you, Hull Tarvish. I know a better way.” She whirled toward the stair-well. “Lebeau!” she called. “Lebeau! There’s—” She glanced sharply at Hull, and continued, “Il y a des tirailleurs dans le bois. Je vais les tireer en avant!” It was the French of N’Orleans, as incomprehensible
