Chapter 6: The King's Henchman

The long room was bathed in colored lights. There was an ornate tiled floor. Barbaric draperies of heavy fabric shrouded the archways and windows. It was a totally barbaric apartment. It might have been the audience chamber of some fabled Eastern Prince of our early ages. Yet not quite that either. There was a primitive modernity here. I could not define it, could not tell why I felt this strangeness. Perhaps it was the aspect of the people. The room was crowded with men and gay laughing girls in fancy dress costumes. Half of them at least were shrouded in crimson cloaks, but most of the hoods were back. They moved about, laughing and talking, evidently waiting for the time to come for them to go to the festival. We pushed our way through them.

Derek murmured, “Keep your hood up, Charlie.”

A girl plucked at me. “Handsome man, let me see.” She thrust her painted lips up to mine as though daring me to kiss them. Hope shoved her away. Her parted cloak showed her white, beautiful body with the dark tresses of her hair shrouding it. Exotically lovely she was, with primitive, unrestrained passions--typical of the land in which she lived.

“This way,” whispered Hope. “Keep close together. Do not speak!”

We moved forward and stood quietly against the wall of the room, where great curtains hid us partly from view. Under a canopy, at a table on a raised platform near one end of the apartment, sat the youthful monarch. I saw him as a man of perhaps thirty. He was in holiday garb, robed in silken hose of red and white, a strangely fashioned doublet, and a close-fitting shirt. Bare-headed, with thick black hair, long to the base of his neck.

He sat at the table with a calm dignity. But he relaxed here in the presence of his favored courtiers. He was evidently in a high good humor this night, giving directions for the staging of the spectacle, despatching messengers. I stood gazing at him. A very kingly fellow this. There was about him, that strange mingled look of barbarism and modernity.

Hope approached him and knelt. Derek and I could hear their voices, although the babble of the crowd went on.

“My little Hope, what is it? Stand up, child.”

She said, “Your Highness, a message from Blanca.”

He laughed. “Say no more! I know it already! She does not want this festival. The workers,”--what a world of sardonic contempt he put into that one word!--”the workers will be offended because we take pleasure to-night. Bah!” But he was still laughing. “Say no more, little Hope. Tell Blanca to dance and sing her best this night. I am making my choice. Did you know that?”

Hope was silent. He repeated, “Did you know that?”

“Yes, Your Highness,” she murmured.

“I choose our queen to-night, child. Blanca or Sensua.” He sighed. “Both are very beautiful. Do you know which one I am going to choose?”

“No,” she said.

“Nor do I, little Hope. Nor do I.”

He dismissed her. “Go now. Don’t bother me.”

She parted her lips as though to make another protest, but his eyes suddenly flashed.

“I would not have you annoy me again. Do you understand?”

She turned away, back toward where Derek and I were lurking. The chattering crowd in the room had paid no attention to Hope, but before she could reach us a man detached himself from a nearby group and accosted her. A commanding figure, he was, I think, quite the largest man in the room. An inch or two taller than Derek, at the least. He wore his red cloak with the hood thrown back upon his wide heavy shoulders. A bullet-head with close-clipped black hair. A man of about the king’s age, he had a face of heavy features, and flashing dark eyes. A scoundrel adventurer, this king’s henchman.