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scabbard had not been made up for me by my beloved Delia. . . I noticed the way she spoke so
unaffectedly of Gafard. Perhaps, after all, there was a real affection, a deep love, between them?
How painful it must be for her, then! I knew nothing of her history, but if she was Grodnim by birth, then
a love for a renegade would reduce her in the eyes of her family. If she was Zairian and had been
captured, perhaps made slave, then how much more painful it must be to receive wealth and privilege and
love from a man who had turned his back on Zair.
I looped the bloodied longsword through a rear strap and let it dangle. If it thwacked the beast a little it
would help it along. It had done well. I would revise my opinion of sectrixes in its favor. Its name was
Blue Cloud, and it was expensive, a gift from Gafard.
I took the girl in my arms again and mounted up, a trick I knew well from the days when I rode with my
incomparable Delia. I held the girl close to my breast, supporting her, feeling her warm, firm body against
mine, and she placed her slender arms about my neck. So we rode back to Gafard.
We spoke but little, silly inconsequential stuff, for she was a great lady and the shock of her experience
had not all worn off, although she affected to regard it as a mere incident. A fold of the veil tangled about
her waist and the hunting gown were all of green, yet the lairgodont s blood had splattered them with red.
I felt the enormous attraction of this girl, for I judged she was still very young, and the perfection of her
beauty would set any man mad and inflamed with passion. Yet I felt a strange otherly feeling for her in
which my own profound and abiding love for Delia formed an inseparable part. As we rode back over
the dust and left the dead monster behind, I thought about the many beautiful women I have known upon
Kregen and of them all even Mayfwy and certain others none would have moved me had I never
known Delia. But this girl might have. . . Had I never met my Delia, then this girl, I thought, might have
come in her time to take my Delia s place. And this, I thought, as I reined up, was blasphemy.
Gafard had limped out after us, raving. He had seen most of what had gone on. Like a warrior he had
brought his sword with him. He was shaking. His face showed dirty gray beneath the bronze suntan.
"My heart! My heart!" He limped forward, desperate.
I set the girl upon the ground and she tottered.
"My beloved!" she cried.
Gafard dropped his longsword. The gleaming blade and the ornate hilt encrusted with jewels, all the
symbolic power of the weapon, went into the dust. He took the girl in his arms. They held each other
close. I walked away.
Yes, I thought, yes, there is genuine love here.
I, a grim old fighting-man, can understand love.
After a space, when I looked back, I saw that Gafard had adjusted what was left of the green veil,
drawing it up to hide the glory of the girl s face. He called her his pearl, his heart, the beloved of his days.
He did not use her name.
That, too, I understood.
When, after a time, others of his retinue found us, he became all harsh authority, damning and blasting,
calling down the wrath of Grotal the Reducer upon the beaters. He shouted passionately for his guards to
take the head beaters and flog them and if they would not die to draw out their bowels until they did.
Old-snake, torture, hideous death, would be their portion for allowing for a single instant any danger to
his divine beloved. He desisted in his anger against them only when the girl pleaded for their lives.
"Jikaider them!" shouted Gafard, incensed, holding the girl as she held him. "Punish them so that all may
know their crimes!"
Flogging them jikaider, with a right-handed and a left-handed man to wield the lash, was horrific
punishment. But Gafard was at pain to point out why he was merciful. "You deserve to be shipped out to
the Ice Floes of Sicce! But my Lady of the Stars has interceded for you, and I deny her nothing within
my power! Thank her, you cramphs! Her orders are my commands! Go down on your bellies, you rasts,
grovel to show your gratitude to the divine to my beloved."
The beaters flopped down, howling, crying, wailing out their gratitude that they were to be flogged
jikaider.
They were flogged most thoroughly, jikaider, and that night their howls sounded uncannily over the
camp, stopping the cowardly and the guilty from much rest. That vicious crisscross flogging opens up a
man s back to the bone. Mere raw lumps of meat, the beaters, by morning. But they would have
unguents applied and they d be carried in litters and, after they d recovered, would go back to the ranks.
Tough, the swod of Kregen, the ordinary common warrior soldier. I wondered if they d be paid the few
obs they would have earned beating for the hunt. The beating had been of a very different kind, poor
devils.
And yet, thinking that, next morning as we prepared to get under way again, I realized I d have done
exactly as Gafard had done more, probably if harm had come to this girl he called the Lady of the
Stars.
In only a few more days we would reach the area in which our operations could start. Then it would be
man s work once more. The hebramen scouting ahead kept more particularly alert, for these wild
barbarians were notorious for their cunning and skill in ambush in this hard and sere region. Farther north
the land of the tall forests led on and on until, at last, the land of everlasting whiteness was reached. I had
no desire at all to journey there. What I did now was a part of the plan I had formed. Duhrra followed
me still because I had promised him I knew what I was doing and he had had evidence of that in the past.
"We will for a time act the part of Grodnims, Duhrra of the Days. We do not fight Zairians "
"No! Mother Zinzu the Blessed forfend!"
"Yet when we reach the Eye of the World again we will have proved ourselves of the Green. Then we
may escape."
"Duh let us crack a few skulls before that, Dak, my master."
"I am Gadak now."
"Aye! And they call me Guhrra, may Zair rot their "
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