let that pass. ‘I gather that this ploy is primarily intended for your wife’s benefit?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then it might be best if the idea of sending you off someplace came from her. I’ll maneuver her into ordering you off on some inconsequential errand, and you can take it from there.’
‘I’d really like to see you try to maneuver Ehlana.’
‘Trust me, old boy. Trust me.’
‘Tega?’ Sarabian asked his foreign minister incredulously. ‘The only superstition they have on the Isle of Tega is the one that says that it’s bad luck not to raise the price of sea-shells every year.’
‘They’ve never mentioned it to us in the past because they were probably afraid we’d think they were being silly, your Majesty,’ Oscagne replied urbanely. Oscagne looked decidedly uncomfortable in the blue doublet and hose Sarabian had ordered him to wear. He couldn’t seem to think of anything to do with his hands, and he appeared to be very self-conscious about his bony legs. ‘The word “silly” seems to strike at the very core of the Tegan soul. They’re the stuffiest people in the world.’
‘I know. Gahenas, my Tegan wife, can put me to sleep almost immediately – even when we’re …’ The Emperor threw a quick look at Ehlana and left it hanging.
‘Tegans have raised being boring to an art form, your Majesty,’ Oscagne agreed. ‘Anyway, there’s an old Tegan myth to the effect that the oyster-beds are haunted by a mermaid. Supposedly she eats oysters, shells and all, and that really upsets the Tegans. She also seduces Tegan divers, who tend to drown during the exchange of pleasantries.’
‘Isn’t a mermaid supposed to be half-girl and half-fish?’ Ulath asked.
‘So the legend goes,’ Oscagne replied.
‘And isn’t she supposed to be a fish from the waist down?’
‘I’ve been told so, yes.’
‘Then how … ?’ Ulath also looked quickly at Ehlana and then abruptly broke off.
‘How what, Sir Ulath?’ Ehlana asked him innocently.
‘It’s – ah – not really important, your Majesty,’ he replied with an embarrassed cough.
‘I wouldn’t even raise this absurd myth, your Majesties,’ Oscagne said to Sarabian and Ehlana, ‘except in the light of recent developments. The parallels between the vampires in Arjuna, the Shining Ones in southern Atan, and the werewolves, ghouls and Ogres in other parts of the Empire are really rather striking, wouldn’t you say? I’d imagine that if someone were to go to Tega and ask around, he might hear stories about some prehistoric pearl-diver who’s been resurrected and also find that some rabble-rouser’s telling the Tegans that this hero and his half-fish, half-human mistress are going to lead the oysters in a mass assault on Matherion.’
‘How droll,’ Sarabian murmured.
‘Sorry, your Majesty,’ Oscagne apologized. ‘What I’m getting at here is that we’ve probably got some relatively inexperienced conspirator on Tega. He’s just getting started, so he’s bound to make mistakes – but experienced or not, he knows a great deal about the whole conspiracy. Since our friends here won’t let us question Kolata too closely, we have to look elsewhere for information.’
‘We’re not being delicate about the Minister of the Interior, your Excellency,’ Kalten told him. ‘It’s just that we’ve seen what happens to prisoners who are on the verge of talking too much. Kolata’s still useful to us, but only as long as he stays in one piece. He won’t be much good if little chunks and globs of him get scattered all over the building.’
Oscagne shuddered. ‘I’ll take your word for it, Sir Kalten. At any rate, your Majesty, if some of our Elene friends here could go to Tega and put their hands on this fellow and talk with him before our enemy can dismantle him, they could probably persuade him to tell us everything he knows. Sir Sparhawk has some ambitions along those lines, I understand. He wants to find out if he can wring somebody out hard enough to make his hair bleed.’
‘You have a very graphic imagination, Sparhawk,’ Sarabian noted. ‘What do you think, Ehlana? Can you spare your husband for a while? If he and some of his knights went to Tega and held the entire island under water for a couple of hours, God only knows what kind of information might come bubbling to the surface.’
‘That’s a very good idea, Sarabian. Sparhawk, why don’t you take some of our friends, run on down to the Isle of Tega, and see what you can find out?’
‘I’d really rather not be separated from you, dear,’ he replied with feigned reluctance.
‘That’s very sweet, Sparhawk, but we do have responsibilities, you know.’
‘Are you ordering me to go, Ehlana?’
‘You don’t have to put it that way, Sparhawk. It’s only a suggestion, after all.’
‘As my Queen commands,’ he sighed, putting on a melancholy expression.
Empress Gahenas was a Tegan lady of middle years with a severe expression and tightly pursed lips. She wore a plain gray gown, buttoned to the chin, and long-sleeved gloves of scratchy wool. Her hair was drawn so tightly back into a bun that it made her eyes bulge, and her ears protruded from the sides of her head like open barn doors. Empress Gahenas disapproved of everything, that much was clear from the outset. She had come to Sparhawk’s study to provide background information on the Isle of Tega, but she did not come alone. The Empress Gahenas never went anywhere without her four chaperones, a cluster of ancient Tegan hags who perched on a varnished bench like a row of gargoyles.
It was a warm day in early autumn, but the sunlight streaming in through the window of Sparhawk’s study seemed to grow wan and sickly when Empress Gahenas entered with the stern guardians of her virtue.
She spent an hour lecturing Sparhawk on the gross national product of her homeland in a tone that strongly suggested that she was going to give a test at the conclusion of the lecture. Sparhawk fought to keep from yawning. He was not really interested in production figures or labor costs. What he really wanted from the jug-eared Empress were little details of ordinary life on the Isle to flesh out the series of letters he was writing to his wife – letters which were to be doled out to Ehlana to help sustain the fiction that he and his friends were tracking down ring-leaders and other conspirators who were concealed among the general population.
‘Ah …’ he interrupted Gahenas’s droning monologue, ‘this is absolutely fascinating, your Highness, but could we go back for a moment to the island’s form of government? That really has me baffled.’
‘Tega is a republic, Prince Sparhawk. Our rulers are elected to their positions every five years. It’s been that way for twenty-five centuries.’
‘Your officials aren’t elected for life?’
‘Of course not. Who would want a job like that for life?’
‘No one ever develops a hunger
