Captive Scorpio by Alan Burt Akers

cheerful, yet with an anxious dint between the eyebrows he manfully tried to conceal.
    He wore the colors of gray, red and green, with a black bar, and his emblem was a leaping swordfish. By these I knew he was of Calimbrev. So this must be Barty Vessler, the Strom of Calimbrev.
    He made a deep obeisance. Delia gripped my arm. She knows how I dislike this crawling and bowing; but we were still in public and were watched.
    “Majestrix, Majister,” said Strom Barty.
    “Strom, how nice to see you,” said Delia.
    We stood on a marble platform with the crowds yelling below and the pillars and statues of the Temple of Lio am Donarb at our backs. Lio am Donarb, although a minor religious figure attracting a relatively small following, was considered worthy of a visit of thanks. To one side a group of nobles prepared, like us, to take to their palanquins or zorca chariots to return to their villas set upon the Hills. Among all their blazing heraldry of color the black and white favors showed starkly, proud, defiant, arrogant.
    I nodded at the group who watched us avidly.
    “You do yourself no good with the Racters by talking to me, young Barty. But you are welcome.”
    He looked up, quickly, taken aback. He must have heard what a crude clansman I was; he had not expected this. And I piled on the agony, despite Delia’s fierce grip.
    “The black and whites would like to tear down the emperor and his family. And whatever I may feel about the emperor, he is my father-in-law. You would run a similar risk?”
    The flush along his cheeks betrayed him; but he spoke up civilly enough — aye, and stoutly.
    “I am prepared for much worse than that, prince. My concern is only for the princess Dayra.”
    I did not say: “Well spoken, lad,” as I might have done in the old days.
    He would have to perform deeds, and not just prate about them, if he aspired to the hand of my daughter.
    When Delia invited him back to the palace I had no objection. On the journey — and we took a zorca chariot with Sarfi the Whip as coachman — Barty indulged in polite conversation, inquiring after all the members of the family. Drak must be in Valka still, for Delia had seen him there when she’d raced there to find me. Her distress, which Deb-sa-Chiu had so graphically described, had been all for me. She had by now become a little used to my disappearances and was prepared to search across to Segesthes, aware that in the past she had found me against what must have seemed to her all odds. Barty inquired after Jaidur, and Delia told him that that young rip had decided to return to a place he knew well and where he would visit his brother Zeg. So Jaidur had gone back to the inner sea and a few casual questions elicited the unsurprising fact that Barty had heard of the place but that was about all.
    Our youngest daughter, Velia, was well and thriving, looked after by Aunt Katri, who was also caring for little Didi, the daughter of Velia and Gafard. Lela, well, she was about her own life in Vallia. And Dayra. . . ?
    “I have had some news, princess,” said Barty, hesitantly, as the zorca chariot rounded the corner past the Kyro of Spendthrifts.
    Delia leaned forward. I frowned. Barty sat opposite us and he shifted about, nerving himself. At last he got it out.
    “She was seen traveling through Thengelsax. A party left the Great River and hired zorcas. She was recognized by a groom who once served in the palace and had returned home to a posting station in the town.”
    I held down the instant leap of anxiety — an anxiety akin to fear. The whole northeast of Vallia resented being a part of the empire, still, although their animosity was being fanned by agitators. They raided down, real border raids, and one of the towns around which their activities had centered was Thengelsax. Its lord had complained bitterly. Was my Dayra mixed up with these border reivers?
    That did not seem likely; but it was a possibility and I could not discount it, much though I