By Anne Fraser and Barbara Zuchegna
With assistance from Sharon Pickrel and Jean Lamb
Copyright 1999

Chapter Seventeen

There was no conversation at all on the ride back to Sa'idi. Only Jake knew exactly what Adrian had seen and felt inside that hellhole of a palace, but Richard understood, and both Ed and Alexis were sensitive enough to realize that it was not a time for idle talk. Adrian had turned his head away from them all and stared out over the desert in absolute stillness. He might have been a marble statue.

When Kamal pulled the ATV into the stable, Adrian was the first one out of the thing, climbing easily over the side to drop lightly to the ground. Before anyone else had descended, he was out the door and gone into the night.

Richard's hand caught Jake's sleeve for a moment. He said, "He will remember to be back before sunrise?"

"Oh, hell, yes." Jake was uncomfortable. He was empathizing with Adrian more than he wanted to admit ... especially to Richard. "He's a big boy, Richard. He's seen worse. Hell ... he's done worse." Well, that wasn't exactly true, maybe, but it was close.

Richard's hand fell away. "I doubt that," he said, and turned away.

The sun would not rise for another hour or so. Jake was probably quite right, and Adrian would be all right. But Richard was only too well aware that he had given an order tonight that Adrian had found hard to obey. He had given such orders for all of his life. He was surprised at how deeply he regretted it this time.

Richard knew he would not be able to find Adrian if Adrian did not want to be found. But he would have to return to the room in Ardeshir's house that had been prepared for him, and although Richard could not have said why he felt compelled to do so, he went there to wait.

The girl had died. Adrian had not 'sent' that to Jake, but his emotions had been strong while he watched it, and Jake had picked up on them. Richard saw the effect of it on Jake, and asked, in that tone that made refusal impossible, what Jake was receiving from Adrian, and all Jake could tell him was that Adrian had seen something that sickened him. But Jake knew what it had to have been, and so did Richard. Adrian had wanted to help that girl, and Richard had said he was not to do so ... and the girl had died.

Richard sat on the edge of the bed, his elbows resting on his thighs, his hands hanging loose between his knees, remembering how very many deaths had been caused by his orders, and at his hands. He remembered standing in the filthy stew where Rob Percy had found Anne at last, watching the whoremaster there plead that it wasn't his fault, watching the fear, and then the despair in the man's sweating face as Richard's dagger sank into his fat belly and wrenched upward. He remembered the cowering excuses for men who worked there, and his own quiet order to Rob: "Kill them. Leave the bodies on the doorstep at Le Herber."

He remembered the petty knight who had come to Middleham to plead some small boon, whose eyes had rested, full of sly speculation, on Anne ... and who had fallen at Richard's feet, his throat slit nearly to the spine by Richard's own dagger. He remembered Will Hastings, pleading for a priest as they dragged him from the council chamber, and then bent over the log on the green below, his life's blood gushing out onto the grass while his head rolled away. He remembered pitiful Mad Harry, embracing him, saying, "Cousin, I am an anointed king," and smiling his gratitude that it was Richard's own hand that took his life.

He remembered Edmund Beaufort's simple dignity the night before he died, begging mercy not for himself but for the girl he knew loved Richard so desperately, and then facing the axe the next day, his eyes locked with Richard's as it fell. He remembered sitting in the freezing tower room, holding his brother's icy hand while George's breath deepened, and slowed, and then stopped. He remembered the primitive hunters he had killed in Val Corey's homeland, men he had not known at all and with whom he had no quarrel but that they were the enemies of a friend.

He remembered, even here in this godforsaken corner of the world, the three border patrolmen who had never known he was anywhere near them until his dagger had sunk into their throats. He remembered the battles ... so many battles, from small skirmishes to great contests on which the fate of a nation hung, when he had killed men he could not have kept count of, with axe and sword cleaving through armor, through flesh and bone, men whose names he would never know, whose faces he had never seen without the savage grimace of men at war, whose blood coated his armor and splashed, unregarded, over his gauntleted hands...

So many deaths ... hundreds ... thousands, at his orders, under his command, and at his own hand. But he had never ordered a friend to stand aside and watch a helpless girl murdered before his eyes. And he could not have said why, in this moment, it seemed so much worse than anything he had ever ordered another to do.

The door opened, and there was a light gasp as he looked up. It was not Adrian, but a slender, pale girl who was already retreating when Richard said, "Lady, please ... come in."

She hesitated, still poised to flee, as he stood. He recognized the girl who had brought T'beth's crossbow to Adrian last night, and he said, gently, "Don't go. Vaje Adrian will return soon."

A small frown creased her smooth forehead. She was delicately beautiful, her long black hair hanging free, her feet bare, her woman's body barely clothed in a simple night shift. Her reason for coming here was obvious. "It is almost sunrise, vaje-ye," she said. "The Exalted One should have sought shelter before now."

Richard took a step toward her and caught her wrist, pulling her into the room. "Wait for him, lady," he said. "I will go."

"Perhaps I should." Adrian's voice came from the open doorway. He was leaning against the doorframe, his eyes glowing red, his face drawn in harsh lines. "Or did you have a threesome in mind, Richard?"

There was a feral, dangerous sound in his voice that Richard had never heard before. Richard pushed the girl behind him and went to the door, intent on passing out into the corridor. Adrian did not move out of his way. "Can we speak privately?" Richard asked.

Adrian's smile was no less vicious than the fangs it revealed. His voice was mocking. "Must we? Don't you want to watch again, Richard? I'll fuck her while you watch, if you like. Or you can, while I watch. Or perhaps the three of us..."

"Adrian." Richard did not try to touch him; he knew Adrian's strength was infinitely greater than his own. But his voice cut like a knife. "Stop this. Your anger is with me and not with this girl. We will speak in the corridor."

For a long moment, Adrian did not move or speak. His eyes held Richard's, and they had nothing human in them. But then the red glow began to fade and he stepped back, and allowed Richard to pass him and pull the door closed on the girl's frightened face.

"This display is unworthy of you," Richard said.

Adrian's laugh was a sound of bitter despair. "No, Richard," he said, shaking his head. The fangs had vanished now, and his eyes were the familiar, limpid greened-blue again. "This 'display' is what I am. This 'display' is the monster you prefer not to see, but it is what I have been for four hundred endless years."

Richard's eyes were steady on his. "It is what was made of you, against your will. Adrian, I am profoundly sorry for what I ordered you to tonight."

"So am I," Adrian said, smiling with a lightness he didn't feel at all. "So much blood...and all of it wasted. I would have killed her more gently, and she would have enjoyed it. I have done so, more times than I can remember. You owe me no apology, Richard."

"I was not apologizing." He saw the start of surprise in Adrian's eyes, and he went on, "Under the circumstances that you faced tonight, I was right in what I ordered you to do. I'm sorry it was necessary, but I am not apologizing for that necessity. I but wish that I had been able to take on myself the burden I placed, instead, on you. Adrian, if you have waded knee-deep in blood, I have sunk in oceans of it. Of necessity. Of necessity only. I am no monster. Nor are you."

Adrian stared at him a moment longer, the muscles of his face tightening, working under the pale skin, the mobile, beautiful mouth compressed. Then he spun suddenly away. "Oh, god ... Richard, she was hardly more than a child. He was carving into her, cutting out pieces of her flesh and tossing them away like offal ... and she saw me. She saw me, and I did nothing..."

Richard's hand lifted to rest on the smaller man's shoulder. "Zanjani is the monster, my friend. And we will destroy him, you and I."

After a moment, Adrian nodded his head and straightened, and Richard's hand fell away. Adrian turned to face him. "I'm the one who should apologize," he said. "I don't usually take out my vapors on my friends." Actually, he did ... but what the hell? Besides, he didn't think Richard believed it for a minute.

"Nor do I," Richard said, entirely aware that he, too, was lying, and that Adrian knew it.

Idiotically, they found themselves grinning rather sheepishly at each other, and then Richard said, "The apology you owe is to the young lady who is waiting for you. I'll leave you to it."

He started to go, then stopped as Adrian said, "Richard?" He turned back and Adrian hesitated, then said, awkwardly, "Thank you. I know it isn't always easy to put up with me."

Richard's reply was perfectly sober. "Isn't it? I think Jake would say that in that regard there was little to choose between us."

"Jake," Adrian said, "deserves a medal for putting up with either one of us."

Richard gave it a moment's thought. "I am still an anointed king," he said. "Perhaps I should knight him. Sleep well, Adrian."

"In time."

Richard smiled, and raised a hand briefly, and walked away.

Hanan waited in the pitch-blackness of the carefully sealed room, her heart pounding almost painfully. The Exalted One had frightened her, and yet she understood what she had seen. She had heard the stories of his kind through all of her life, and she knew that when an Exalted One showed fangs, when his eyes lit with the color of blood, he thirsted...

Yesterday, when she had come to him, he had accepted her lovemaking, he had allowed her to arouse him and pleasure him. But he had not taken her blood, as the Exalted were said to do, and she wondered then if it was because he did not find her worthy. It was the first thing her great-grandmother had asked of her when she left him, and she had been ashamed at Kanum Assieh's disappointment. No woman in their family had been so honored by an Exalted One for many generations and her great-grandmother had already been framing the verses that would go into her History...

The door opened, and the Exalted One entered. When he closed it, she could not see him, but she knew his eyes were not clouded by the dark, and when his cool, slender hands touched her, she sighed, and whispered, "The candle, Exalted One. Please let me see you."

She felt him move away from her, and a moment later he struck a match and lit the bedside taper. She felt her breath catch in her throat as the warm light played over the incredible perfection of his face. She was not frightened now.

He came to her and lifted her nightdress from her, slipping it up over her head to fall away to the floor. His eyes, glinting the color of peacock feathers in the meager light, held hers while his hands, so incredibly cool on her fevered skin, searched her body with strange gentleness. There was something different about him, something more than the sadness. She tilted her head to the side and laid her hand over the great exposed vein in her neck. "Honor me, vaje-ye," she whispered. "Let me give to you."

He hesitated, and she was afraid she had offended him. She had no right to ask...

"Not there," he said. He sat on the bed and pulled her down beside him. "Not there, Hanan," he said again, and took her hand in his and raised it to his lips.

There was only a brief flash of pain and then ... and then, overwhelming her, flooding through her every vein, driving her, a pleasure she had never imagined. She was faint with it, dizzied with it, exalted by it, and she was not even aware of when it changed from his mouth on her pliant wrist to his slender body moving on hers. He had found her worthy, and her great-grandmother would be pleased and proud, would frame the verses that would enshrine this day and ennoble her family in the history of the people for all time to come. But for these few brief hours, Hanan didn't care.

Meanwhile, back at the ATV:

Adrian had jumped down and disappeared into the night. Jake and Richard had had a brief conversation concerning Adrian's state of mind. Jake hadn't been overly helpful, but he'd been feeling far too much empathy for Adrian's emotions.

Now, like Adrian, the anthropologist wanted to be left alone. So he was a bit curt with Richard, and the king went into Ardeshir's house to wait for Adrian’s return. Trouble was, as soon as Richard left, Jake felt like a crumb. Richard had been concerned about Adrian, as was Jake.

This trip had been hell, Jake reflected. Tonight's doings had only driven it home to them all how much danger they were in. Adrian had watched a girl murdered before his eyes ... the same Adrian who had murdered a few girls himself, mind you, but not simply because he was tired of carving them up.

Jake had to believe that his vampire wasn't the monster in this scenario. His sympathies were with Adrian. The real trouble was just how much he was sympathizing with Adrian.

The mental picture in Adrian's mind as he had stood, raging against Richard's orders, watching that girl die had been so vivid that Jake might as well have been there. Something deep down inside him, a small voice he had been hotly denying for two or three years now, wanted to go and be with Adrian. To comfort him.

Jake pounded his right fist into his left palm. Dammit, he wasn’t gay! The thought, even briefly, of letting Adrian touch him in that way was nauseating. His desire to offer comfort was non-sexual, friend-to-friend. Adrian wouldn't see it that way; the vampire still cherished hope that Jake would return his regard.

You could love somebody without wanting to have sex with him.

Couldn't you?

Jake sighed, staring off into the desert night. Lafeeta aside, he was just not having a good time on this trip. Richard made him feel like an idiot and a disobedient child. Adrian was distant; he'd been in a dark and lonely "pity this poor monster, man unkind" mood for nights. Alexis wasn't interested in Jake and also tended to treat him like a kid. Ed had no use for him. Will was the closest thing Jake had to a friend, and it wasn't like they could go out for a beer and a game of pool, was it?

Jake wished he could have brought Max along on the trip. Max would have totally freaked out, but at least he'd be somebody to talk to. Instead, Jake was stuck here, alone and misera...

"Jake?"

Alone and mis...

"JAKE?"

Alone and m...

"Jacob Fowler ... earth to Jacob Fowler..."

"Huh?" He turned to see Ed staring at him. "Uh, you been there long?" He flushed. Damn. A perfectly good self-pity funk interrupted.

"Long enough," Ed grunted. "What are you staring at?"

"Trying to figure out which way Toronto is from here, and if I'll ever see it again."

"That way," Ed pointed, "and sure you will. You've survived so far, and believe me when I say that the odds weren't very high."

"You, too?" Jake snorted. "Okay, fine. I'm an idiot and not fit to live."

"Did I say that?" Ed asked. "You're someone in a situation that you have no idea how to handle. This isn't your field. You're a city boy out in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of a war that isn't yours, being jerked around by a couple of strong-willed men. You're doing fine, actually."

Had Ed been carrying a feather upon his person, he might have employed it to knock Jake over. "Um, wanna repeat that? In front of Richard?"

"He knows, Jake. It's his job to know. He's just not real good at telling people things like that. That isn't his job." Ed shrugged. "It's not mine, either, but it's not good for the team effort to have a team member with low morale. So buck up. Nobody else could have done what you did tonight, and that information was vital."

Jake brightened a little. "Yeah," he said, totally forgetting his rebellion against being a 'psychic walkie-talkie.' "It was Adrian who took the risk, though."

"Pretty Boy came through," Ed nodded. "Has he had some kind of formal training in this sort of thing? He doesn't come across as a professional, but he sure handles himself like one in the field. I'm impressed -- and I ain't easily impressed."

"Then why do you keep calling him Pretty Boy?" Jake grunted.

"That's what he is. A Pretty Boy who happens to be a damned good field agent. Had a couple of them in the CIA, too; nobody ever wanted to be naked in the locker room with them around, but you could put your life in their hands in the field. Just not your butt."

"I don't think Adrian's interested in your butt, Ed."

"He likes Baluchi ass, though, doesn't he? Boys and girls, I notice."

"Adrian swings both ways," Jake said. "Sometimes at the same time."

"Kinky. Pick a gender and stick to it, it's safer." Ed idly took out his handgun and inspected it in the starlight. "So ... is he?"

"Is who what?" asked Jake, having lost track.

"Is Pretty Boy a pro? It's not fair not to have told me if he is."

"He's a pro," Jake answered. "If you mean a pro-fessor. He teaches graduate English drama, Ed; I imagine that's pretty much like being a CIA agent in the field."

"It's late October, almost Halloween," Ed pointed out. "Shouldn't he be in a classroom?"

"I should be studying artifacts at the Royal Ontario Museum, if it comes to that," Jake said with a sigh. "We both just sort of abandoned our jobs when this little vacation came up. I'm going to get fired. U of T should have fired Adrian at least two years ago; he's missed more classes than most students. But he's so damned popular that they keep him on staff even when he almost never shows up. They're worried that if they fire him, he'll go to Stratford and direct plays there. The ROM doesn't give a damn about me; cultural anthropology grads are begging for work."

"Then why did you come?" Ed asked.

Jake turned and looked at him, and the expression in the big young man's eyes made Ed just a little uneasy about him. "T'beth is my friend," came the simple reply, and Jake walked away.

Jake's dramatic exit, stage left, was somewhat spoiled when he bumped into somebody. The resulting "oof!" had a distinct feminine twist to it. Sigh. Would he ever be anything but a clumsy idiot? He bent down to assist the young lady whom he'd caused to precipitously meet the pebble-strewn desert floor and discovered himself holding Lafeeta's hand. He dropped it as if it had been scalding hot, and pretty much looked as if he'd been scalded, too.

She giggled. "You turn red so easily, Ja'ake," she said.

"Oh, god, Lafeeta..." his voice came out in strangled bursts. "I'm sorry ... I ... last night ... this morning ... oh, god ... I've never ... I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"I have fallen to the ground before, Ja'ake," she said, still laughing.

"I didn't mean now." The red crept into his face again--he wished he knew the secret of not blushing. He couldn't help it, even though he was hardly a, um, blushing virgin. "Um. Last night. I can explain..."

"Explain what?" Her eyes blinked up at him. "That you are a..." she used a term in her own language that was untranslatable, but that pretty much indicated such things as rampant stallions, flagpoles, and untiring pistons.

Jake gulped. "You ... enjoyed it?" he asked, breath whooshing out of him.

Those eyes regarded him with sparkling humor. "What true woman would not, Ja'ake? You are truly a man, to so satisfy a woman's needs. I would like to have your big red stick between my legs again."

Well, that was certainly straightforward enough. These girls didn't tiptoe around when they wanted sex, apparently. Obviously, the Islamic religious fervour to keep girls as sort of untouchable trophies hadn't ever caught on in Sa'idi.

"Okay," said Jake. Hell, if she could be blunt, so could he. "But I was really stupid last night, I didn't think of protection..."

"I am not unclean," Lafeeta assured him.

"I don't want to make you pregnant," Jake said, aware it was a bit late for this, that the several times they'd both achieved orgasm last night and during the day were more than enough to have ensured fertilization. He'd just have to hope like hell that she hadn't gotten pregnant, or this village was going to get one heck of a nasty surprise in nine months.

She shut him up with her lips, took his hand, and led him willingly to her house again. She had a tub full of hot water ready for him. Oh, damnable girl, to seduce a man with a hot bath... and when she climbed in with him, he forgot all about condoms.

Richard Plantagenet, having just left his peculiar friend, Adrian Talbot, to his own devices...and those of a lovely young lady, has gravitated to the kitchen of Vaje Ardeshir's house...not a difficult task, since coffee, in this part of the world, is a serious beverage, and at this hour of the early morning, makes itself easily findable.

The women of Ardeshir's household had taken a liking to the Vaje Richard, even if none of them had been able to tempt him into her bed. Richard was never able to distinguish just which of these ladies were wives, or daughters, or servants ... all seemed equally outspoken and comparably dressed, and all worked with the same cheerful enthusiasm.

Yesterday, as they had not been expecting his interest in a bath, the best they had been able to provide was water barely heated enough to take the deep chill of the well from it. Today, better prepared, they had placed large earthen pots of water where the sun could heat it all day, and then sealed the pots to hold in as much of the warmth as possible. The bath they led Richard to this morning, chattering happily though they were well aware he did not understand, was fairly hot still.

As they had yesterday, they insisted on stripping him, and Richard allowed it, moving his coffee cup from hand to hand as required to free his shirt. There was a great deal of giggling, from young and old alike, and he thought it was probably just as well that he didn't understand what they were saying. He stepped into the relatively small tin tub and settled as much of his body into the blessedly hot water as he could, with a sigh of relief. Submerging those parts of his body that drew the most comment cut down on the giggling to a considerable degree.

One of the girls brought a bottle of shampoo...an American brand he had seen at the Refuge, and proceeded to soak his hair and to scrub it vigorously into a pile of scented lather. Another was applying a sponge to those parts of him that he would allow, edging continually to those he would not allow, with a small moue of disappointment every time he fended her off. Richard sipped his coffee and allowed himself to be pampered. Except that the attendants were female, it was in just this way that he had bathed throughout all his former life.

At some point, a more serious attempt to arouse his interest was decided upon. As he finished bathing and stood in the tub, reaching for a towel, there was a sudden, whispering exodus from the room by all but one young woman, and she snatched the towel from his hands, scurried behind him, and began to dry his back. Slowly, carefully, she worked her way down his body, and as the towel came around to his genitals, Richard felt her lips on his spine.

He turned and pulled the towel from her hands, looking down into the bright, expectant eyes with genuine regret. "I'm sorry," he said. She did not understand the words, but she understood the refusal. Her face went slack with dismay. She stood there a moment, blinking, tears filling her eyes, and then turned and ran from the room.

Richard stepped from the tub, took the waiting silk kaftan and slipped his arms into it. His mouth twisted unpleasantly; he knew exactly why he had refused the girl. She was eager and desirable, but he was expecting to find Liliana in his dreams and he wanted no one else. For all his pathetic resolve to find a way to live without the woman, with each day that passed he was more and more eager to close his eyes and imagine her with him again. Like an opium addict, he thought, who would swear never to allow the drug to take over his life, but whose hands shook, whose every bone and muscle ached and screamed for the relief that could be found nowhere else.

There was a discreet knock on the door and he lifted his head and called, "Enter."

It was Ardeshir, asking if Richard would share his breakfast. This was served at a low table in the large central room of the house, with several other men in attendance ... male members of the family, the elders Faroud and Daryush, and a few of the village men. The household's women glided softly on bare feet to serve. Breakfast itself was light ... melon and some sort of cooked cereal, and the wonderfully dark and rich coffee.

Desultory conversation drifted over the table, with Ardeshir translating for Richard. These men discussed the weather, their flocks, their children, their business ventures, and finally, the one enterprise on which the life of this village had always depended: smuggling.

This, they said, was becoming more and more difficult as the government increased its patrols along the Pakistani border, and Afghanistan, which used to be a rich source, had fallen into a religious dictatorship worse than Iran's own. With the added problem of the Ayatollah's "taxes," which he applied to illegal business as freely as to legal, the village was encountering real economic disaster for the first time in all its history. Worse, there was the matter of the women.

"Our women," Ardeshir explained, "as you have noticed, do not observe purdah. This was not our way from our earliest history, and it is not our way today. Our women are not property."

That was obvious. Ardeshir went on to explain that in the past, because of the difficulty of reaching Sa'idi, with no road between here and the provincial capital, or shahrestan, it had always been possible to see any approaching vehicle, or any horseback patrol, long before it reached the village. The women had time to go into seclusion or to veil themselves before unwelcome visitors arrived.

"But the Ayatollah's Exalted enforcers come in the night, silently," Ardeshir said. They had a vampire's ability to see in the dark, and they did not have to use vehicle headlights to approach the town. On a number of occasions, they had appeared among the villagers with no warning at all ... and in each instance, they had taken captive one or more of Sa'idi's women.

One of the men at the table described his son's wife...a beautiful girl, the pride of her family. The Evil Exalted Ones had seen her, and seized her, and when her husband tried to stop them, he was brutally killed before her eyes. The girl was taken, and she had not been seen alive again. Her body, violated, brutalized, drained of blood, had been found in the park behind the Ayatollah's palace. Her two small children had been orphaned. Other families in the village could tell similar tales.

The other, older Exalted Ones ... the ones lying comatose now in the cave across the valley, had prevented these abuses. Now, there was no way to fight back. The Exalted could not be stopped by guns or knives, or in any other way that the people here could discover. Attempts had been made to complain to the national government in Teheran, but those who did so were found dead, often with their entire families, and now there was too much fear for even whispered complaint.

Eventually, the men fell silent, and although none of them looked directly at Richard, it was clear they were hoping that he would tell them that his group's expedition into Saravan last night would offer them some hope. But they were too polite to ask openly.

Richard gave it a moment's careful thought. He said, "The Exalted One Vaje Adrian and I will find his friend, the Kanum T'beth. We will destroy the Ayatollah Zanjani. Beyond that, I can promise nothing. We will learn, if we can, what was done to the Exalted Ones in the cave. But we cannot be certain that what was done can be undone. Nor can we promise to destroy the Exalted Ones who act for the Ayatollah. They are many, and the Vaje Adrian is but one man. His heart is with you, as was that of the Kanum T'beth. But the power of their numbers is greater than his alone."

There was much sober nodding of heads around the table. They understood the difficulty.

Richard said, "The Vaje Adrian's chance of success in this might be greatly enhanced if he could call upon the people of Sa'idi for assistance."

Heads came up, eyes cautiously receptive. No one said anything for a long moment, and then Ardeshir, with a careful glance around at the other men, said, "Vaje Richard, there is no man in this place who would not willingly lay down his life to remove this oppression."

"I know that, my friend. If courage were enough, the Ayatollah and his henchmen would long since have been defeated." Richard sipped his coffee and let them think about it, then he said,"It is, sometimes, the smaller sacrifices that are required."

There was another long moment of silence, another exchange of quick glances around the table. Ardeshir said, "I can think of no sacrifice we would be unwilling to make, to bring down the Ayatollah." He was speaking in English, but there were more agreeing nods from the others. "Whatever we possess that will work toward that end, we will gladly give."

Richard nodded, too, and drank his coffee. And said nothing.

More glances around the table. More sipping of coffee. More silence. Then, sighing, Ardeshir said, "Vaje Richard, as you command those who came to this place with you, will you consent to command those of us here, who would join you in this fight?"

Richard seemed to give this careful consideration. Then he said, "Do you speak for all the people of Sa'idi in this, vaje-ye?"

Ardeshir nodded solemnly. "I do. I place my people in your hands, if you will accept them."

Richard was quiet for a moment more, while every eye at the table was fixed avidly on his face. Then he said, "I am humbled by your trust, and will honor it."

Heavy sighs, and relieved smiles now. "What then," Ardeshir asked, "would you have us do, vaje-ye?" It was the first time that Ardeshir, as the leader in Sa'idi, had addressed Richard in precisely that way. My lord. From the headman, it meant much more that the simple "vaje" attached to a given name.

Richard said, with a new note in his voice ... a note Jake Fowler knew very well, "Is there a man in Sa'idi who is skilled at the plating of one metal on another?"

It turned out that there was. A young man here had been apprenticed to a goldsmith in Saravan until that individual had been driven out of business by the ruinous taxes imposed on his trade. The young man had come home to engage in the more traditional business of the black Baluchis, smuggling.

"Send for this young man," Richard said. "And it will be necessary to gather from every household in the village whatever stores of silver are available."

Eyebrows shot up. Richard said, patiently, "The Exalted Ones who captured the Kanum T'beth did so with chains of silver. They would not have known that silver disabled her unless they, too, were vulnerable to its effects."

There was an immediate chorus of "ahs" around the table. These men might not speak English, but they definitely understood it fairly well. Ardeshir said something to them in their own tongue, and everyone got up and hurried away from the table, almost knocking each other down in their enthusiasm. Ardeshir positively beamed at Richard. The goldsmith's apprentice would be brought immediately. Silver would be quickly collected from each household. Was there something else that should be done?

There was. There was a blacksmith's shop that Richard had noted in his exploration of the village. Preparations should begin there, at once, for melting down the village's silver. Ardeshir called in a servant and sent for this to be done.

Will Scrope, who had not spent the previous night in Ardeshir's house, appeared at just about the same moment as the young man named Puzhman, who had been the goldsmith's apprentice. Richard did not ask where Will had been. Instead, he instructed him to see to Richard's sleeping arrangements. If either Ed Perry or Jake Fowler was asleep in the room where Richard would lie down, Will was told to toss them out at once. When he had spoken with the apprentice, Richard was going to bed, and in spite of the willing company he had been offered, he was going to bed alone.