THE SEEDS OF TREACHERY

Otar, a warrior in the service of Vokal, a powerful and high-ranking nobleman of the city of Ammad, was violently unhappy this night. His sandaled feet beat an angry rhythm against the pavement in front of the arched opening in the high stone wall about his master’s estate. Thirty paces one way, an about face executed with the military precision Vokal demanded of his guards, then thirty paces back again, spear held rigidly across his tunic-clad chest.

The velvety blackness of a moonless night weighted the street and matched his mood a blackness only intensified by the feeble yellow rays of a lantern in a niche above the gate. Silently he cursed the captain of the guards who had demoted him to night sentry duty, then he cursed Vokal for his mad judgment in picking so heartless a captain to begin with.

There was a sound reason for Otar’s unhappiness. Only the day before he had taken a mate the incomparable Marua, daughter of one of Vokal’s understewards Marua, whose exquisite blonde beauty and matchless form had brought her a host of male admirers, many of them in high positions in Vokal’s service. Among them was Ekbar, captain of the nobleman’s guards; and therein, Otar knew, lay the reason why he was walking a midnight post outside Vokal’s sprawling estate. The thought of his lovely new mate alone in his snug apartment in the guard’s quarters while he paced away the hours brought a fresh flood of curses to his lips.

“Greetings,” said a hoarse whispering voice behind him.

Otar, startled, whirled and leveled his spear in one rapid motion. “Who speaks?” he growled.

An indistinct figure, muffled to the chin in a black cloak, was standing in the street only a foot or two beyond reach of the questing spearhead.

“Fear not,” said the harsh voice. “It is I Heglar, nobleman of Ammad. I am here to hold an audience with the noble Vokal. At his own invitation. Here.” He held out his hand from under the cloak and something gleamed from the center of his palm in the faint light. “Examine this by the rays from yonder lantern.”

Cautiously, his heavy spear ready in his right hand, Otar took the object and backed away until he could see it clearly. His careful maneuvering was in line with orders, for attempts at assassination were fairly common among Ammad’s nobles in their ceaseless efforts for power second only to Jaltor himself, king of all Ammad.

A single glance was all Otar needed. It was Vokal’s personal talisman: a small square of gold bearing on one side a peculiar design cut in the soft metal. No humblest warrior in all Vokal’s vast retinue who did not know that design and his duties when faced with it.

He returned the talisman to the man who called himself Heglar and stepped back, bringing his spear sharply to a saluting position. “You may pass, noble Heglar. This path will bring you to a side door of Vokal’s palace. The guard there will see to it that you are taken to him.”

Vokal stood on a small balcony of stone outside his private apartment on the fourth level of his huge, many-roomed palace. He was a tall slender graceful man in his early fifties, with a narrow face, small cameo-sharp features and a languid almost dreamy quality in his movements and expression. Prematurely gray hair waved back from a brow of classical perfection, and the hand he lifted to smooth that hair was narrow and long fingered and beautifully kept. He was wearing the knee-length tunic common to all men and women of Ammad, but his was of a better weave, its belt of the same material was a full two inches wider and trimmed with the purple of Ammadian royalty.

From this elevated position he was able to look out over the northern section of the city of Ammad a vast orderly array of box-like stone buildings, some gray and some white, rising one to three floors above the streets. Fully five miles from where Vokal stood was the northern section of the great gray wall of stone encircling the city, and the buildings became smaller and simpler in design the nearer they were to that wall.

A man’s position in Ammad was determined by how near the city’s center his dwelling stood. At the metropolis’ exact center was the mammoth palace of Jaltor, king of Ammad and supreme ruler of a vast country of jungle, plain and mountain extending a moon’s march in all directions. Like Vokal’s own palace, Jaltor’s rose from the crest of one of the city’s five hills; but the king’s, in addition to being at the exact center of Ammad, stood on the highest of them all. It could be seen from the windows on the opposite side of Vokal’s palace the principal reason his personal quarters were here. Sight of that huge sprawling pile of white stone, its roof six levels above the ground, was a constant source of irritation to him.

A sound of soft knocking from behind him aroused Vokal from his reverie, and he turned unhurriedly and re-entered the room.

The knocking was repeated. Vokal sank gracefully into an easy chair covered with the soft pelt of Tarlok, the leopard, crossed his shapely bare legs and studied the effect with approval.

Again the sound of knocking, a shade louder this time. “Enter,” called Vokal around a yawn which he covered with the tips of two fingers.

A door opened, revealing the rigidly erect figure and carefully expressionless visage of an officer of the palace guard.

Vokal concluded his yawn. “Yes, Bartan?”

“The noble Heglar is here, Most-High.”

“Excellent! Permit him to enter immediately.”

The guard executed a sharp quarter turn and stepped back, allowing a man swathed to the chin in the voluminous folds of a black cloak to push past him into the room.

“Greetings, noble Vokal.” The words came out in a hoarse croak that grated against the host’s sensitive ears.

“Greetings, noble Heglar.” Vokal’s smile seemed even dreamier than usual. “Remove your cloak, please, and be seated.... Bartan, tell a slave to bring us wine.”

“At once, Most-High.” The guard withdrew, closing the door softly.

Vokal’s gray-blue eyes went to his guest and he smiled blandly. “I trust all is well with you and the members of your family, noble Heglar.”

Stripped of his cloak, Heglar was revealed as a man of extraordinary thinness and considerable age. The pronounced hollows in his cheeks and a thin nose the dimensions of an eagle’s beak, together with the rocky ridge of an underslung jaw, gave him an emaciated look. But his body was straight as a young sapling, his shoulders for all their boniness were surprisingly broad, and his light blue eyes were alert and piercing.

He ignored his host’s solicitous inquiry concerning his family and bent and unknotted the thongs of his heelless sandals. Kicking them off he leaned back in his chair and, sighing with relief, placed his bare feet on a low stool in front of him.

If he caught the faint wrinkle of disgust about Vokal’s shapely lips he ignored it. “You’ll forgive an old man for humoring his feet,” he croaked. “I’m not accustomed to long walks these days.”

“By all means give them comfort.”

“I tried to learn from your messenger the reason behind your asking me here tonight. He would tell me nothing simply gave me your message, handed me your emblem piece ” he dug a hand into a pocket of the tunic, took out the square of gold and handed it to Vokal “and left without another word.”

“You could hardly expect one of my men to do otherwise,” Vokal said frostily.

“One never knows.” The old man settled himself more comfortably in his chair. “I was curious and a little doubtful at the interest of the third most powerful man in all Ammad especially when his interest concerns the most impoverished and least influential noble of that same country.”

There was a soft knock at the door and a slave girl slipped in, placed a tray of wine and two goblets on a low table between the two men, and went out as silently as she had entered.

Heglar’s eyes followed her trim figure until the gently closing door shut off his view. “Believe me,” he said, watching Vokal fill the two goblets, “there was a day I had slaves like that one. Many slaves and more warriors than any noble in all Ammad. Only old Rokkor himself, Jaltor’s father, had more of them.”

He sighed gustily. “But that’s all in the past now. My only regret is that I must leave my young mate and our two children with little more than a roof above their heads when I die.”

“Your love for the gracious and beautiful Rhoa is well known throughout all Ammad,” Vokal murmured, handing his guest one of the filled goblets.

The old man gulped a third of its contents before taking the container from his lips. “And why shouldn’t I love her?” he demanded harshly. “Thirty summers my junior, lovely enough to have her pick of men and she chooses me. Forty summers I spent with my first woman and what a sour-faced old hyena she was and not a child to show for it. Now we have two, Rhoa and I and I have nothing to leave them but a miserable hovel in place of the palace I once owned.”

Vokal sipped daintily from his goblet and let the garrulous old man ramble on. Let him go on bemoaning his lowly position and living over his past glories. Every word of it would make the old one more agreeable to Vokal’s proposition.

The nostalgic refrain went on until Heglar had emptied his first glass of wine and extended it for a second helping. This time he spilled a few drops on the floor as a voluntary offering to the God-Whose-Name-May-Not-Be-Spoken-Aloud a tribute given usually only during formal dinners gulped down several swallows of the alcoholic grape beverage, then turned those sharp eyes on Vokal.

“But,” he said hoarsely, “you didn’t ask me here to talk of the old days. What do you want of me, noble Vokal?”

There was a short period of silence during which Vokal appeared to be making up his mind. Wavering light from candles set in wall brackets about the long, richly furnished room gave a lean, almost vulpine cast to his calm face and a glittering sparkle to his cold eyes. Finally he said:

“I want to make you a wealthy man again, Heglar.”

The hand holding the wine goblet jerked involuntarily and some of the wrinkles in the aged face seemed to deepen. “... Why me?”

Vokal smiled dreamily. “Right to the point, eh, Heglar? It is one of my reasons for selecting you.”

“Hmm.” The old one looked down into his half-empty goblet to hide the sudden gleam in his eyes. “Tell me more of these reasons for wishing to make me rich.”

“The list is long,” Vokal said graciously, “so I shall give only the principal ones. First, it is well known throughout all Ammad that you are a man of your word that once you give a pledge nothing in this world or the next could force you to go back on your word.”

Heglar scowled. “One of the reasons I am a poor man today!”

“Secondly,” Vokal went on, “it is reported that you are a walking dead man, that you have only a few moons left to live because of the sickness in your throat.” At the other’s startled expression he waved a languid hand. “It is common knowledge, noble Heglar; your physician is a talkative man.”

“Thirdly,” he continued, his voice calm, almost indifferent, “your long and honorable career as a mighty warrior proves you a man of great physical courage, and you are still strong and active enough for a dangerous task.”

A wry smile touched the old man’s lips. “Then I am expected to earn this wealth you are offering me?”

“Of course. I am not noted for being a charitable man, noble Heglar.”

“... Are there other reasons?”

“Lastly,” Vokal said imperturbably, “as a nobleman you have the freedom of Jaltor’s court and may come and go there as you please.”

He looked sharply at the older man as he finished speaking and for a long moment they stared into each other’s eyes in silence.

Heglar was the first to speak. “Now that you have listed my qualifications, what use do you expect to put them to?”

Vokal bent forward and fixed him with his penetrating gaze. “I must call upon the first of them before this conversation can go any further. Will you give me your solemn pledge that not one word of this will go beyond the two of us?”

“... Yes.”

“Good. I want you to forfeit the few remaining moons of life left to you.”

Heglar blinked. It was the sole sign of emotion aroused by that startling declaration. “Those few moons are priceless to me, noble Vokal,” he said, a faint smile hovering about his lips.

“I am prepared to pay heavily for them.”

“You would have to.... What do you want me to do?”

Vokal leaned back in his chair and placed the tips of his fingers lightly together, looking over them at the old man. His eyes had gone back to being dreamy again. He said:

“I want you to attempt the assassination of Jaltor, king of Ammad!”

The breath left Heglar’s lungs in an explosive gasp. “What madness is this!” he cried hoarsely. “Why do you want Jaltor dead? Certainly his death would not better your position as a noble in the court. His son would take the throne; and even if something happened to him, his sister would be next in line. Are you planning to do away with the entire royal family, noble Vokal?”

Vokal was shaking his head. “I’m afraid you did not understand me, my friend. I said that I wanted you to attempt Jaltor’s assassination not to kill him.”

“This makes no sense to me!”

“It is very simple. I want you to attend one of Jaltor’s morning audiences within the next day or two. Work your way close to him, draw a knife and make a clumsy attempt to stab him. But be sure you fail. The guards will overpower you instantly; and when Jaltor demands to know why you tried to kill him, refuse to answer other than to hint that you were not alone in the plot.”

“Knowing Jaltor as we both do, he will order you put to torture in an effort to learn the facts. Endure that torture as long as you possibly can. Then blurt out the name of the man who hired you.”

Heglar was watching him through narrowed eyes. “I’m beginning to see the light,” he said dourly. “The name I give him will be that of the man you are really after.”

“Exactly.”

“Whereupon I will be put to death.”

“Jaltor has never been famed for his leniency, noble Heglar.”

The old man drained his goblet of wine and put it on the table with a steady hand. “At least he is a just man. He would punish only those he believed implicated in the plot; my family would not be persecuted.” He seemed to be speaking to himself. “Rhoa would be a wealthy woman and my children would never know want or hardship....”

His eyes came slowly up to Vokal. “My price will be one thousand tals!”

It was a staggering amount the equivalent of twelve thousand young male slaves but Vokal never hesitated. “I will pay it, noble Heglar,” he said quietly.

“In advance.”

“As you wish. I need no assurance beyond your word that you will carry out the exact terms of the arrangement.”

Heglar sighed. “You have my word.... What name will Jaltor’s torture wring from my reluctant lips?”

“That of the noble Garlud.”

“Oho!” Heglar nodded in tribute. “That clears up the picture. Garlud is second only to Jaltor as the most powerful man in all Ammad. With him out of the way, you, as the next in line among Ammad’s noblemen, will take Garlud’s place and all the benefits that go with it. I congratulate you, noble Vokal, on your shrewdness.”

They filled their earthen goblets and drank. After a moment Heglar said, “There is one drawback to your plan, my friend. I hesitate to mention it, for a man as thorough as you has doubtless anticipated that flaw and taken steps to overcome it.”

“No man is perfect,” Vokal said equably. “To what do you refer?”

“Garlud has a son. As is our custom he will inherit his father’s position and estate even though Garlud is executed for treason.”

“And if the son is dead also?” Vokal said silkily.

“So you have thought of it! I might have known. In that case, since Garlud’s mate died over a moon ago, his wealth returns to the State, except for the palace which is given to the next nobleman in line.”

“Precisely.”

“Uh-hunh. Do you know for sure that Garlud’s son let’s see: his name is ... ah

“Jotan.”

“Of course. A fine young man too as I remember him. You’re sure he’s dead?”

“If not, he soon will be.”

“But he is not in Ammad, I understand. Didn’t he make a trip to Sephar, Vokal?”

“He is due back within half a moon at the earliest.”

“How will you handle the matter when he arrives at Ammad’s gates?”

Vokal smiled his dreamy smile. “He will not arrive at Ammad’s gates, O Heglar! The day you attempt Jaltor’s assassination a party of my most trusted guards will leave Ammad to intercept Jotan and his men. Their orders will be to leave not one of them alive.”

“It is clear that you have thought of everything!” The old man gulped down his wine and stood up. “It is late, and at my age I need a great deal of sleep especially if I am to be tortured by Jaltor’s experts in that line! So, if you will pay me my thousand tals, noble Vokal, I shall leave you.”

“Of course.” Vokal rose smoothly to his feet, went to the door and summoned a guard outside. “Arouse Yodak and instruct him to bring a thousand tals to me here.”

“At once, Most-High.” The guard saluted and went quickly down the hall.

Heglar was shaking his head admiringly. “You take some long chances, Vokal!”

The gray-haired nobleman glanced sharply at him. “What do you mean?”

“This matter of your guards calling you ‘Most-High’. That is a mark of respect given only to kings, you know. I doubt if Jaltor would approve of your appropriating it to your own use.”

The other’s blue-gray eyes seemed to film over. “Kings have been known to die, noble Heglar and at times the ranking nobleman takes his place. One must prepare for every possibility.”

“Even to having one’s guards form the habit of saying Most-High, eh?”

The arrival of a small frail-bodied old man in hastily donned tunic ended the conversation. He was bearing a small cloth bag which gave off the sounds of clinking metal.

“The thousand tals, Most-High,” he quavered, holding out the bag.

Vokal took it and dismissed the man. “... Would you care to count them?” he said upon placing the bag in Heglar’s hands.

“It is not necessary,” the old man said, then smiling, added: “You need my specialized services too badly to cheat me!”

Vokal summoned a guard and instructed him to appoint several warriors to escort the old man safely to his home, as robbery under cover of night was far from unusual on Ammad’s numerous streets.

When the door had closed and Vokal was alone once more, he returned to his chair and filled his wine cup. “A thousand tals,” he mused. “Heglar’s assistance comes high indeed. But let him fondle them for a little while before they come back to me along with the lovely Rhoa. I wonder what the old man would say if he knew his mate has been my mistress these past three moons!”