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indeed a simpleton. In the eyes of men like Klerus, only simpletons were
honest. Wise men were always ready for a little treachery.
Klerus shrugged in his turn. For a moment Blade thought the High Councilor was
going to indulge himself in some parting remark. But he managed to restrain
himself, raised his hands in the prayer gesture, and went out.
That was the start of his relations with Klerus, although Blade wasn't quite
sure how he would describe it. He had managed to avoid giving Klerus any
promises of support, that was certain. He had also managed to avoid an open
clash with the High Councilor. At least he hoped so, since that was even more
important. Possibly he had even convinced Klerus that the Pendarnoth was a
simpleton who could be ignored.
He decided to stop worrying about Klerus for the moment. The next thing to do
would be to find out how much freedom of movement he had. Was he confined to
his rooms, for all practical purposes a prisoner in a gilded cell? Did he have
the run of the palace? Or could he roam all over Pendar, assuming he wanted
to?
Chests inlaid with ivory and gilded bronze held a wide selection of rich
clothing. Much of it was silk, and nearly all of it was so heavily embroidered
with gold thread and lace that the underlying color was almost invisible.
Where there was metal, it too was gold or gilded. But at least he was able to
pick up some practical weapons. A curved double-edged sword three feet long
went into a scabbard on his belt, and a straight foot-long dagger into a wrist
sheath.
Now that he was dressed and armed to standards that satisfied him, should he
summon a servant to guide him through the palace? Better not. It would be
impossible to tell whether or not a servant was a spy for Klerus or for
Klerus' opponents. Without touching the bell cord, he went to the door to the
corridor and opened it.
Several servants who happened to be passing by promptly fell on their faces as
Blade appeared. He grimaced. It was going to be rather hard to walk around the
palace freely if everybody promptly fell on the floor when they saw him. Was
this perhaps a way of keeping him in his room? He stepped out into the
corridor and looked down at the servants:
"Rise, my friends. I am neither a god nor a king. The way to honor me is on
your feet, not on your bellies."
One of the men raised his head a little and murmured, "The priests have told
us that the Pendarnoth
shall be worshiped in this fashion. It is not fit that the eyes of those not
cleansed shall look upon the face of the Pendarnoth."
Blade nodded. "And by whom is one cleansed?"
"By the priests, O Pendarnoth."
"And all the servants who wait upon me in my chambers are thus cleansed, I
suppose?"
The man swallowed. Blade realized he was pushing the man toward ticklish
ground. But for the moment he had to go on pushing. This was too important to
let slip by. He repeated his question, putting a note of command in his voice.
The man turned pale, and Blade saw beads of sweat break out on his brown face.
Finally he licked his lips and said, "Yes. They are chosen from the worthiest
only."
Blade's lips curled in a thin smile. There was only one more question to ask,
the crucial one. "And who chooses the worthiest, my friend?" The man gasped
and Blade saw his jaw clamp tight, as though he were facing torture. Perhaps
he was or at least the danger of it. Blade decided not to push things farther.
Instead he merely smiled again and said, "I think I know who does the
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choosing. The High
Councilor Klerus keeps his hand in everything, doesn't he?"
The man started violently. For a moment Blade thought he was actually going to
be sick with fright.
The look on the man's face spoke as loudly and clearly as any words could have
done. Forgetting any possible fear of the priests, he leaped to his feet and
vanished down the corridor at a dead run. The other men and women hesitated a
second, then did the same. Blade was left standing alone in the empty
corridor.
Part of the situation was now as clear to Blade as if it had been engraved in
gold on the floor at his feet. Klerus (who else?) was determined to surround
him with spies and limit his movements as much as possible. However, that
might well be something that any veteran of palace politics would see fit to
do.
What bothered him more was the obvious mortal terror Klerus inspired in the
servants. There was something ugly about that.
Should he go back or go on? Damn it, if he went back he would have given the
first victory to
Klerus! He wasn't going to do that, no matter how many servants he
inconvenienced. He turned to the left and strode away down the corridor.
Most of the servants had obviously been briefed by the priests or perhaps by
Klerus. They went down on their faces or at least knelt with their eyes on the
floor as Blade passed. He made no effort to argue with them. The first
encounter had taught him that was futile.
The palace seemed to be a complete maze inside, with corridors branching off
for no apparent reason at the oddest points. With no one to guide him and no
one to bar his path, Blade wandered freely for what seemed like hours. In the
process, he built up a fairly good notion of what lay where in the palace.
Although the servants did not dare look upon his face, neither did they dare
refuse to answer his questions about where he was or what lay behind a
particular door.
Twice he was respectfully but firmly turned back, both times by squads of
oversized men armed to the teeth. Once he was told the king's chambers lay
beyond the guarded door. The other time, where the men appeared to be eunuchs,
it was the Princess Harima's chambers they were guarding. Blade noted both
locations and moved on without argument.
Eventually he came out through a high-arched portico into a garden. A garden?
It was more like a park. It seemed to stretch away in a beautiful confusion of
trees and shrubs and grass for hundreds of yards. Gravel walks wound in and
out among the greenery and the occasional splashes of color that told
of flower beds.
Blade strode out into the sunlight and wandered about the garden, without any
particular goal in mind. Mostly he simply wanted to see whether there was
going to be any uproar over the Pendarnoth's prowling freely about the palace.
In time he found himself approaching a white marble bench that stood in the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]