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should do should do and, by Green Grodno, cannot, will not will never!"
I saw clearly that some oppressive matter weighed on his mind. As a renegade he was not fully accepted
by the overlords. He believed in the king and yet in this matter he could not talk to the king. He
desperately wished to confide in someone, as is a common practice among people, I have noticed. If he
decided to tell me, I wondered if that would make my position more secure or destroy me utterly. I
rather thought it would be the latter. Yet this man fascinated me. I could feel the strong attraction he
exerted despite the evil of him. He was a mere man, as was I. He would pay for his crimes. Was the
changing of allegiance from Red to Green so great a matter anywhere but on the inner sea? I found it
hard to condemn him as I knew him now, as I had found it easy to condemn him when I did not know
him.
"Riddle me this, Gadak. Which is more important, the good of your lady or the good of your country?"
"That has had many facile answers, and every case is different."
"But if it was you you! Your answer?"
"No man can answer until he has faced the situation and the question."
"Do you know that my Lady of the Stars and I are married? No only a very few know. Grogor
knows. We married permanently. Not in the rites of Grodno " He picked up his glass and spilled most
of it. He barely noticed.
"Then the king would honor a legal and sanctified marriage."
"Fambly! He has the yrium. And the rites were not the rites of Grodno." He chuckled. "Even though
there were two ceremonies, neither was that of Grodno." And he drank and let the glass slip through his
fingers.
I felt a prod might bring him back to reason. For so strong and powerful a personality he was letting go
of his will, was allowing this matter that tormented him to undermine all the strength he possessed, and so
I knew this was no ordinary matter that so obsessed him. I spoke carefully.
"If the king succeeded in taking my Lady, would your men fight to regain her? If the fact was over and
done, would they risk treason against the king? In that situation would not their loyalty to the king
transcend their loyalty to you?"
He struggled to rise and slumped back, panting.
"So that is how you answer the question of loyalty to your lady and loyalty to your country!"
"You should know better if this is the case you present, then "
"It is the case! Grogor would go up against the king for me, I know! And I picked you, for I thought you
would be loyal even if I could not, for the king has the yrium, even if I could not you "
If that was his problem I fancied the stab of an emergency would quickly make up his mind for him.
As though Drig himself had heard me and mocked me, on that thought the door opened and Grogor
burst in. He looked ghastly. Both Gafard and I knew, at once, almost word for word what he would say.
Gafard lumbered up, screeching, drawing his sword. Swords would be useless for a space, I fancied.
"Gernu! She is taken! Stikitches real assassins in metal faces, professionals . . . They ride toward the
Volgodonts Aerie!"
The Volgodonts Aerie, another hunting lodge like the Zhantil s Lair, stood some three burs ride away
in the woods. That, we could not have foreseen.
Gafard s face appeared both shrunken and bloated. His eyes glared. All the drink he had taken made his
face enormous and yet the horror of the moment shriveled him. He gasped and struggled to breathe. I
caught him and lowered him into his chair. Grogor stood, half bent, expecting an avalanche of invective.
Gafard croaked words, vicious, harsh words like bolts from a crossbow.
"We must ride, Grogor! Have the sectrixes saddled up. Gather the men. We must ride like Zhuannar of
the Storm!"
"Rather, master, call on Grakki-Grodno "
I knew what he meant. Grakki-Grodno was the sky-god of draft-beasts of Magdag. So for all his brave
talk, he had failed the test.
But Grogor said, "The king has taken my Lady and she is now his. He is the king and he has the yrium.
The men would have fought for you have fought for you, master when she was rightfully yours.
Now she is rightfully the king s. No man will raise his hand against the king." Then, this bulky, sweaty
man, a renegade, drew himself up. "I would ride, my lord. Would you have me ride alone against the
king?"
He had a powerful point. Gafard looked crushed. The strength and power oozed out of him. I felt a
crushing sorrow for the Lady of the Stars. Evidently the little shishi had failed to convince the king. Spies
had done the rest. There were those in Gafard s household who did not love him, that was certain, and
we had made a splendid spectacle riding out of Magdag. There was no point in my offering to ride. If
Gafard roused himself, if Grogor rode, that would be three of us against a band of professional stikitches.
The assassins of Kregen are an efficient bunch of rasts when they have to be, and on a task of
kidnapping they are no less ruthless. No, sorrowful though this made me, I would have to go with the
majority.
My own concerns for my Delia must come first. My Delia ah! How I longed for her then . . . How
could a pretty girl, even a girl with the fire and spirit and charm of the Lady of the Stars, stand for a
moment in my thoughts against my Delia!
The shadows in the corner of that masculine room with the harsh trophies of the hunt upon the walls,
the stands of arms, the pieces of harness and mail, the tall motionless drapes all breathed to me of
softer, sweeter things: of Delia s laugh, the sight of her as we swam together in Esser Rarioch, the love
we had for our children, all the intimate details that make of a man and a woman, make of a marriage, a
single and indivisible oneness.
No, I would not throw away my Delia s happiness for my Lady of the Stars.
Gafard was breathing in hoarse, rattling gasps. The drink, the shock, the fuddlement, had left him bereft
of that incisive command. He had been stricken down.
"The men will not ride!" He shook his head, hardly able to believe and yet knowing the stark truth of it.
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