At the end of the week, Herndon visited the Avenue of Bronze and
learned from Bollar Benjin that sales of the starstones proceeded
well, that the arrangement under royal patronage was a happy one, and
that they would soon be relieved of most of their stock. It would,
therefore, be necessary for him to make another trip to Vyapore during
the next several weeks. He agreed, but requested an advance of two
months' salary.
"I don't see why not," Benjin agreed. "You're a valuable man, and we
have the money to spare."
He handed over a draft for ten thousand stellors. Herndon thanked him
gravely, promised to contact him when it was time for him to make the
journey to Vyapore and left.
That night he departed for Meld XVII, where he sought out the surgeon
who had altered his features after his flight from sacked Zonnigog. He
requested certain internal modifications. The surgeon was reluctant,
saying the operation was a risky one, very difficult, and entailed a
fifty per cent chance of total failure, but Herndon was stubborn.
It cost him twenty-five thousand stellors, nearly all the money he had,
but he considered the investment a worthy one. He returned to Borlaam
the next day. A week had elapsed since his departure.
He presented himself at Moaris Keep, resumed his duties, and once
again spent the night with the Lady Moaris. She told him that she had
wangled a promise from her husband, and that he was soon to be invited
to court. Moaris had not questioned her motives, and she said the
invitation was a certainty.
Some days later a message was delivered to him, addressed to Barr
Herndon of Zonnigog. It was in the hand of the private secretary
to Moaris, and it said that the Lord Moaris had chosen to exert his
patronage in favor of Barr Herndon, and that Herndon would be expected
to pay his respects to the Seigneur Krellig.
The invitation from the Seigneur came later in the day, borne by a
resplendent Toppidan footman, commanding him to present himself at
the court reception the following evening, on pain of displeasing the
Seigneur. Herndon exulted. He had attained the pinnacle of Borlaamese
success, now; he was to be allowed into the presence of the sovereign.
This was the culmination of all his planning.
He dressed in the court robes that he had purchased weeks before for
just such an event--robes that had cost him more than a thousand
stellors, sumptuous with inlaid precious gems and rare metals. He
visited a tonsorial parlor and had an artificial beard affixed, in the
fashion of many courtiers who disliked growing beards but who desired
to wear them at ceremonial state functions. He was bathed and combed,
perfumed, and otherwise prepared for his debut at court. He also
made certain that the surgical modifications performed on him by the
Meldian doctor would be effective when the time came.
The shadows of evening dropped. The moons of Borlaam rose, dancing
brightly across the sky. The evening fireworks display cast brilliant
light through the winter sky, signifying that this was the birthmonth
of Borlaam's Seigneur.
Herndon sent for the carriage he had hired. It arrived, a magnificent
four-tube model bright with gilt paint, and he left his shabby
dwelling-place. The carriage soared into the night sky; twelve minutes
later, it descended in the courtyard of the Grand Palace of Borlaam,
that monstrous heap of masonry that glowered down at the capital city
from the impregnable vantage-point of the Hill of Fire.
Floodlights illuminated the Grand Palace. Another man might have been
stirred by the imposing sight; Herndon merely felt an upwelling of
anger. Once his family had lived in a palace too: not of this size, to
be sure, for the people of Zonnigog were modest and unpretentious in
their desires. But it had been a palace all the same, until the armies
of Krellig razed it.
He dismounted from his carriage and presented his invitation to the
haughty Seigneurial guards on duty. They admitted him, after checking
to see that he carried no concealed weapons, and he was conducted to an
antechamber in which he found the Lord Moaris.
"So you're Herndon," Moaris said speculatively. He squinted and tugged
at his beard.
Herndon compelled himself to kneel. "I thank you for the honor your
Grace bestows upon me this night."
"You needn't thank me," Moaris grunted. "My wife asked for your name to
be put on my invitation list. But I suppose you know all that. You look
familiar, Herndon. Where have I seen you before?"
Presumably Moaris knew that Herndon had been employed in his own
service. But he merely said, "I once had the honor of bidding against
you for a captive proteus in the slave market, milord."
A flicker of recognition crossed Moaris' seamed face, and he smiled
coldly. "I seem to remember," he said.
A gong sounded.
"We mustn't keep the Seigneur waiting," said Moaris. "Come."
Together, they went forward to the Grand Chamber of the Seigneur of
Borlaam.
* * * * *
Moaris entered first, as befitted his rank, and took his place to the
left of the monarch, who sat on a raised throne decked with violet and
gold. Herndon knew protocol; he knelt immediately.
"Rise," the Seigneur commanded. His voice was a dry whisper,
feathery-sounding, barely audible and yet commanding all the same.
Herndon rose and stared levelly at Krellig.
The monarch was a tiny man, dried and fleshless; he seemed almost to
be a humpback. Two beady, terrifying eyes glittered from a wrinkled,
world-weary face. Krellig's lips were thin and bloodless, his nose a
savage slash, his chin wedge-shaped.
Herndon let his eyes rove. The hall was huge, as he had expected; vast
pillars supported the ceiling, and rows of courtiers flanked the walls.
There were women, dozens of them: the Seigneur's mistresses, no doubt.
In the middle of the hall hung suspended something that looked to be a
giant cage, completely cloaked in thick draperies of red velvet. Some
pet of the Seigneur's probably lurked within: a vicious pet, Herndon
theorized, possibly a Villidoni gyrfalcon with honed talons.
"Welcome to the court," the Seigneur murmured. "You are the guest of my
friend Moaris, eh?"
"I am, Sire," Herndon said. In the quietness of the hall his voice
echoed cracklingly.
"Moaris is to provide us all with some amusement this evening,"
remarked the monarch. The little man chuckled in anticipatory glee. "We
are very grateful to your sponsor, the Lord Moaris, for the pleasure he
is to bring us this night."
Herndon frowned. He wondered obscurely whether he was to be the source
of amusement. He stood his ground unafraid; before the evening had
ended, he himself would be amused at the expense of the others.
"Raise the curtain," Krellig commanded.
Instantly two Toppidan slaves emerged from the corners of the
throneroom and jerked simultaneously on heavy cords that controlled
the curtain over the cage. Slowly the thick folds of velvet lifted,
revealing, as Herndon had suspected, a cage.
There was a girl in the cage.
She hung suspended by her wrists from a bar mounted at the roof of
the cage. She was naked; the bar revolved, turning her like an animal
trussed to a spit. Herndon froze, not daring to move, staring in sudden
astonishment at the slim bare body dangling there.
It was a body he knew well.
The girl in the cage was the Lady Moaris.
Seigneur Krellig smiled benignly; he murmured in a gentle voice,
"Moaris, the show is yours and the audience awaits. Don't keep us
waiting."
* * * * *
Moaris slowly moved toward the center of the ballroom floor. The marble
under his feet was brightly polished and reflected him; his boots
thundered as he walked.
He turned, facing Krellig, and said in a calm, controlled tone, "Ladies
and gentlemen of the Seigneur's court, I beg leave to transact a little
of my domestic business before your eyes. The lady in the cage, as most
of you, I believe, are aware, is my wife."
A ripple of hastily-hushed comment was emitted by the men and women of
the court. Moaris gestured and a spotlight flashed upward, illuminating
the woman in the cage.
Herndon saw that her wrists were cruelly pinioned and that the blue
veins stood out in sharp relief against her pale arms. She swung in a
small circle as the bar above her turned in its endless rotation. Beads
of sweat trickled down her back and down her stomach, and the harsh
sobbing intake of her breath was audible in the silence.
Moaris said casually, "My wife has been unfaithful to me. A trusted
servant informed me of this not long ago: she has cheated me several
times with no less a personage than an obscure member of our household,
a groom or a lackey or some other person. When I questioned her,
she did not deny this accusation. The Seigneur"--Moaris bowed in a
throneward direction--"has granted me permission to chastise her here,
to provide me with greater satisfaction and you with a moment of
amusement."
Herndon did not move. He watched as Moaris drew from his sash a
glittering little heat-gun. Calmly the nobleman adjusted the aperture
to minimum. He gestured; a side of the cage slid upward, giving him
free target.
He lifted the heat-gun.
_Flick!_
A bright tongue of flame licked out--and the girl in the cage uttered a
little moan as a pencil-thin line was seared across her flanks.
_Flick!_
Again the beam played across her body. _Flick!_ Again. Lines of pain
were traced across her breasts, her throat, her knees, her back. She
revolved helplessly as Moaris amused himself, carving line after line
along her body with the heat-ray. It was only with an effort that
Herndon held still. The members of the court chuckled as the Lady
Moaris writhed and danced in an effort to escape the inexorable lash of
the beam.
Moaris was an expert. He sketched patterns on her body, always taking
care that the heat never penetrated below the upper surface of the
flesh. It was a form of torture that might endure for hours, until the
blood bubbled in her veins and she died.
Herndon realized the Seigneur was peering at him. "Do you find this
courtly amusement to your taste, Herndon?" Krellig asked.
"Not quite, Sire." A hum of surprise rose that such a newcomer to the
court should dare to contradict the Seigneur. "I would prefer a quicker
death for the lady."
"And rob us of our sport?" Krellig asked.
"I would indeed do that," said Herndon. Suddenly he thrust open his
jewelled cloak; the Seigneur cowered back as if he expected a weapon to
come forth, but Herndon merely touched a plate in his chest, activating
the device that the Meldian had implanted in his body. The neuronic
mesh functioned in reverse; gathering a charge of deadly force, it sent
the bolt surging along Herndon's hand. A bright arc of fire leaped from
Herndon's pointing finger and surrounded the girl in the cage.
"Barr!" she screamed, breaking her silence at last, and died.
* * * * *
Again Herndon discharged the neuronic force, and Moaris, his hands
singed, dropped his heat-gun.
"Allow me to introduce myself," Herndon said, as Krellig stared
white-faced at him and the nobles of the court huddled together in
fright. "I am Barr Herndon, son of the First Earl of Zonnigog. Somewhat
over a year ago a courtier's jest roused you to lay waste to your fief
of Zonnigog and put my family to the sword. I have not forgotten that
day."
"Seize him!" Krellig shrieked.
"Anyone who touches me will be blasted with the fire," Herndon said.
"Any weapon directed at me will recoil upon its owner. Hold your peace
and let me finish.
"I am also Barr Herndon, Second Steward to Lord Moaris, and the lover
of the woman who died before you. It must comfort you, Moaris, to
know that the man who cuckolded you was no mere groom, but a noble of
Zonnigog.
"I am also," Herndon went on, in the dead silence, "Barr Herndon the
spacerogue, driven to take up a mercenary's trade by the destruction
of my household. In that capacity I became a smuggler of starstones,
and"--he bowed--"through an ironic twist, found myself owing a debt of
fealty to none other than you, Seigneur.
"I hereby revoke that oath of fealty, Krellig--and for the crime of
breaking an oath to my monarch, I sentence myself to death. But also,
Krellig, I order a sentence of death upon your head for the wanton
attack upon my homeland. And you, Moaris--for your cruel and barbaric
treatment of this woman whom you never loved, you must die too.
"And all of you--you onlookers and sycophants, you courtiers and
parasites, you too must die. And you, the court clowns, the dancing
bears and captive life-forms of far worlds, I will kill you too, as
once I killed a slave proteus--not out of hatred, but simply to spare
you from further torment."
He paused. The hall was terribly silent; then someone to the right of
the throne shouted, "He's crazy! Let's get out of here!"
He dashed for the great doors, which had been closed. Herndon let him
get within ten feet of safety, then blasted him down with a discharge
of life-force. The mechanism within his body recharged itself, drawing
its power from the hatred within him and discharging through his
fingertips.
Herndon smiled at Lord Moaris, pale now. He said, "I'll be more
generous to you than you to your Lady. A quick death for you."
He hurled a bolt of force at the nobleman. Moaris recoiled, but there
was no hiding possible; he stood bathed in light for a moment, and then
the charred husk dropped to the ground.
A second bolt raked the crowd of courtiers. A third Herndon aimed at
the throne; the costly hangings of the throne-area caught first, and
Krellig half-rose before the bolt of force caught him and hurled him
back dead.
Herndon stood alone in the middle of the floor. His quest was at its
end; he had achieved his vengeance. All but the last: on himself, for
having broken the oath he had involuntarily sworn to the Seigneur.
Life held no further meaning for him. It was odious to consider
returning to a spacerogue's career, and only death offered absolution
from his oaths.
He directed a blazing beam of force at one of the great pillars that
supported the throneroom's ceiling. It blackened, then buckled. He
blasted apart another of the pillars, and the third.
The roof groaned; the tons of masonry were suddenly without support,
after hundreds of years. Herndon waited, and smiled in triumph as the
ceiling hurtled down at him.