Alexander, Lloyd - Vesper Holly 01 Read online

  Garbed in heavy tweed knickers and a shooting jacket, he was a large, looming sort, who looked as if he spent more time outdoors than poring over manuscripts. His great shock of white hair added an air of benevolence and good nature. He seemed altogether at ease with Osman and on the best of terms with Ergon Pasha.

  "Your father is known to me," Dr. Helvitius told Vesper, "but by reputation only. I never had the pleasure of meeting him. I gather that you share his interest in Illyrian folklore."

  Osman explained the purpose of our visit and asked if Dr. Helvitius could shed any light on Holly's theory.

  "I have studied the Illyriad very closely in connection with my own research." Helvitius spoke with the faintest shadow of an accent I could not identify. "There is no question. The epic does reflect many historical events. I have found proof in His Majesty's archives, which are as complete as any I have seen."

  "You are, sir, an archivist. A historian?" I asked. "May I inquire as to the nature of your specialty?"

  "I have many specialties." Helvitius smiled with becoming academic modesty. "Geology, botany, chemistry among others. At the moment, I find the study of Illyrian manuscripts especially stimulating."

  "You said you found proof," put in Vesper. "That's what I'd like to know about."

  "Proof there is," replied Helvitius, "to convince me that this so-called magical army is pure invention, no more than a marvelous literary fancy. Had there been any real basis in actual history, the documents would have made some reference to it."

  "I'd like to see those documents for myself," said Vesper.

  "I assume, doctor," Osman said to Helvitius, "that would not interfere with your own work?"

  "Not at all." Helvitius inclined his head toward Vesper. "But I assure you. Miss Holly, your magical army is sheer folkish fantasy. Nothing even remotely resembling it ever existed. Of that, I am entirely satisfied."

  "You are," said Vesper. "I'm not."

  It was agreed that Vesper would return the next day. Helvitius would have all the documents prepared for her scrutiny. While Vesper was at the palace, I would see to having our equipment sent to Vitora, the administrative center nearest Alba-Collia. Colonel Zalik, the local commander, would be notified of our arrival.

  "Because, Brinnie," Vesper declared, "we'll go there no matter what the archives show."

  Osman now indicated our audience was over. "I have duties less agreeable than conversing with Miss Holly."

  With another royal hand-kiss, he reminded Vesper of his promise to help in every way, then added, "Dear Miss Holly, if only it were possible to settle this strife as you suggested; if only I had the means or some basis allowing i me to grant an honorable peace. This is my personal wish. As king, I have no choice. I must pursue our campaign against these rebels with vigor, and with deepest regret."

  We were escorted to our carriage. "Osman's not a bad fellow," remarked Vesper, as we rode back to our hotel. "He really doesn't enjoy fighting. That's happy news for the Illyrians—the ones who survive."

  Next morning, while Vesper rooted among the palace archives, I went to the portside storage warehouse to have our equipment recrated, to make out labels for delivery to Vitora, and to complete the rest of the paperwork. The inspectors and other officials took no pains to conceal their opinion. Afarenki, or anyone who chose to venture into the Illyrian backlands, was certifiably a lunatic. By then, I had come to share that view.

  I was glad, at last, to return to the relative comfort of our lodgings. I had scarcely sat down when Vesper hurried into the room.

  "Brinnie, I found something," she began. "Two things, in fact. One of them is Nilo."

  CHAPTER 5

  "What, for heaven's sake, is a nilo?" I asked.

  "Not what," said Vesper. "Who."

  She beckoned to a figure standing in the doorway. "Come in. It's all right. Brinnie's a tiger, but he won't bite you."

  The object of Vesper's invitation sidled into the room. He was a gangling, large-framed fellow, his oversized feet encased in scuffed leather boots, one of those Illyrian pillbox caps on the back of his head, his hair tumbling into his eyes. His gait was something between a slouch and a skulk. He halted in front of me and made a disjointed son of bow.

  "I found him in front of the hotel," said Vesper.

  "You should have left him there," I said. "Dear girl, why ever did you bring him here?"

  "He needs work, Brinnie. He wants to be our dragoman. He can drive, cook, do odd jobs. So I hired him."

  I replied that she had best unhire him. It was out of the question to employ a total stranger, let alone one picked up like a stray cat.

  "Effendi, " Nilo ventured to put in, bobbing his head up and down, "stray cat, truest companion. That is an old Illyrian proverb."

  "I forgot to tell you," Vesper said. "He knows English."

  Nilo grinned sheepishly. I suppose I did likewise.

  "He speaks Illyrian and Zentan," Vesper went on. "Best yet, he was born up north. Near Alba-Collia itself. He knows the whole countryside around there, Brinnie. How's that for luck? He's exactly what we need."

  What I needed was a little more confidence in the fellow. This Nilo struck me as a feckless specimen. Yet, if he did indeed know the locality, he might be of use. With some reluctance, I agreed he could work for us. I emphasized the word work.

  Nilo bowed and made grateful Illyrian gestures. "Now I shall take the horses and carriage to a stable for the night, and stay there to watch over them."

  There was, I replied, one difficulty. We had neither horses nor carriage.

  "We do now," said Vesper. "I didn't see Osman, but he left orders for that chief undertaker of his to give us a royal coach and pair. That saves us having to find our own, which means we can leave first thing in the morning."

  Osman's generosity had relieved me of an added chore, for which I was thankful. Nilo, assuring me he was an excellent driver with a deep understanding of horses, ambled off to attend to his duties. Vesper flung herself into a chair.

  "I found something fascinating in the archives," she said.

  Here, my interest roused. Had she actually turned up some documentary proof of her father's theory.

  Vesper shook her head. "What I found was a gap. Plain as a missing tooth. That's interesting, Brinnie. Very curious. The palace records go back centuries: royal orders, letters, every kind of detail. Except for the year when the magical army would have been sent against Vartan."

  I reminded Vesper that Dr. Helvitius had said as much.

  "No, he didn't. He told us he'd never seen such complete archives."

  How then, I asked, did Helvitius explain it?

  "All he said was there'd never been any documents for that year. I don't believe him."

  A respected scholar, an academic, I replied, would certainly not tell an untruth,

  "Maybe. Maybe not," said Vesper. "All I know is that there are plenty of records before, and plenty of records after. Nothing in between. I think somebody took them. Who? When?"

  As for when, I answered, they could have been removed any time within the past half-dozen centuries. Or merely lost. Or thrown out by accident. Such things often happened. As for why, that would be impossible to guess. One thing we could be sure of: Neither Dr. Helvitius nor anyone in the palace would deliberately get rid of priceless historical documents.

  "I suppose not." Vesper chewed on a thumbnail. "Unless there was a good reason. I can't imagine what. It puzzles me, Brinnie. Well, so much for the archives. They're no help. We'll have to scratch for ourselves. And I mean to keep scratching till I find what we're looking for."

  Early next morning, Vesper pounded on my door, urging me to hurry. She goaded me downstairs and into the street. In front of the hotel, Nilo perched on top of a vehicle that looked like a huge packing crate slung between iron-bound wheels. It promised all the comfort of an oxcart.

  "This isn't
from the palace," explained Vesper. "Nilo sold that one."

  "Sold it?" I burst out. "Yes, I'm sure he did—and pocketed the money."

  "No, no, effendi. I traded it." Nilo spread his hands to fend me off, for I would have collared the wretch then and there. "I kept the horses; they were very fine. But the fancy carriage— effendi, believe me, it would fall apart in two days. Less, even. The axle was already half-broken. Very dangerous."

  "It was clever of Nilo to see that." Vesper beamed at him. "We might have broken our necks. You should thank him."

  As I climbed into that horse-drawn torture chamber, my feelings were not those of gratitude. Later, as we lumbered our way out of the city into the countryside, I admitted that Nilo had acted wisely. We lurched along rutted roads that would have ripped the underpinnings from a less sturdy vehicle. Our bones were rattled by potholes deep as volcano craters. I calculated one bruise per half mile and estimated that by the time we reached Alba-Collia, we would have turned entirely black and blue.

  The following days, as we jolted northward past little patchwork quilts of tenant farms, it grew apparent that we had come into a different sort of country.

  No doubt the region included a Zen tan population, but the look and atmosphere were ethnic Illyrian: the women handsome, bold in their glances, dressed in bright over-skirts; the young men, mostly big, lanky fellows, wearing knee-length vests and embroidered pillbox hats; the oldsters sporting enormous handlebar mustaches.

  The Illyrians, by and large, seemed good-natured and spirited and tended to laugh uproariously at their own obscure jokes. I also perceived an underlying edginess. They glowered and muttered among themselves in smouldering surliness whenever a detachment of Zentan troops passed through—not an infrequent occurrence.

  As for Nilo, he was never there when he could have been useful and always there when we had no need of him. Otherwise, he mainly spent his time lounging about with the locals.

  In Trajana, a village where we stopped to have our horses reshod, Nilo struck up an acquaintance with a big, hard-bitten Illyrian who looked as trustworthy as a highway robber. A scruffy beard covered half his face; the other half was weathered almost black. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and alarmingly muscular. His eyes, deep-set, burned with what could have been some intense, inner fire or simply a bad disposition. A clean shirt would not have harmed him.

  Vesper and I chanced upon this individual sitting with Nilo at a rickety table in the kaffenton-tavierna, a kind of public house found in even the smallest hamlet.

  "I present to you Milan." Nilo bobbed his head and waved an introduction. Milan only muttered and stared us up and down.

  "And Silvia." Nilo indicated Milan's companion, an attractive, dark-haired young woman who looked too intelligent to have any dealings with a desperado like Milan.

  I was not keen on pursuing the acquaintanceship. Nilo, in my opinion, had fallen into dubious company. But Vesper insisted on sitting down with them and treating them to coffee and honey pastries. Within moments, the dear girl was happily chatting away as if she and Silvia had been childhood friends.

  Vesper, indeed, had become more Illyrian than Philadelphian. During our journey, she had acquired the local garb: an embroidered vest, a gaudy kerchief, a pair of threadbare trousers. She looked half-brigand, half-gypsy. I hoped the effect would not be permanent.

  After a time, Milan and Silvia left the kaffenion. Nilo tagged along with them. He reappeared eventually to announce that the blacksmith had run into some sort of difficulty. By then, it was too late in the day to set out again.

  "But I have arranged everything," Nilo assured us. "The hahnoom and you, effendi, will have rooms above the kaffenion. I shall be comfortable in the stable. We have a proverb, effendi: To a tired head, straw is as soft as goose down."

  If that were true, Illyrian geese must resemble porcupines, for I tossed and turned on my mattress that night. Vesper had taken the delay in good part. To me, it was the latest in a series of mishaps. I had lost count how many times our dragoman had followed a wrong road or taken a shortcut leading us to the middle of nowhere.

  Our journey, in consequence, was far longer than I had reckoned. At the end of it, I feared, there was every likelihood that the dear child would discover nothing at all.

  It also occurred to me that if Osman launched his troops against Vartan in the near future, Vesper and I might well be caught in a hornet's nest.

  With these disturbing thoughts in mind, I finally drifted into a doze. A vague sense of some presence roused me. I sat up in bed.

  I had only a moment to become aware of a looming shadow. Then a hand was clapped over my mouth.

  CHAPTER 6

  I tore free of the stifling grasp and rolled out of bed, shouting for help in Illyrian, Zentan, and English. My assailant tried to slip away, but I seized him and tumbled him to the ground.

  The door burst open. Vesper, in her night robe, held up a guttering candle.

  "Brinnie, what's happened?" she cried. "Why are you choking poor Nilo?"

  Nilo indeed it was. Heart still pounding, I called out that the fellow had gone mad and tried to attack me.

  "Effendi, please, you do not understand. I tried only to warn you." Nilo picked himself up from the floor and scurried to Vesper. "Hahnoom, quick! No noise. We must leave here. I have the carriage ready. Dress and pack now."

  He turned to me. "Please, effendi, hurry. There is a—a small trouble. It is wiser if we do not stay."

  A band of rebels, he explained, had been sighted nearr the village, and Zentan troops were going after them.

  "Whether they catch them or not, the Zentans will come back. They will search and question everyone, to learn if the rebels have comrades here. Perhaps they do, perhaps they do not. No maner, some of us will be arrested. Some off us—" Nilo shook his head. "Trust me, hahnoom. It is better for us to go. You yourself are in no danger. But withi Zentans, who knows? A little caution is good. We have am old proverb: When the dove flies into the myrtle bush, the? hungry hawk tightens his belt."

  At that moment, there was a commotion in the street' below. Some of the villagers had come out of their houses, yelling, flinging curses and insults at a detachment of about a dozen Zentan cavalry galloping by. In reply, a couple of the troopers fired their pistols at random. One of the reckless shots shattered a pane of the window from which I had been observing.

  "Come on, Brinnie. Do as Nilo says."

  I agreed that he had made a persuasive argument in favor of a hasty departure. We threw our clothing into our bags and hurried down to the stable. Nilo bundled us into the coach.

  "We shall not follow the same road as the soldiers," he said, slapping the reins. "I know another way. It is a good shortcut."

  He set off as fast as our ungainly vehicle could carry us. The moon was high, shining brilliant white over the countryside. It should have given him light enough to avoid the worst of the ruts and ridges. Nilo managed to jolt us into every one of them. We had covered no great distance when he pulled up and suddenly halted.

  Vesper had been drowsing. Nothing kept the dear girl from sleeping when and where she chose. The abrupt stop roused her. "What's wrong, Nilo?"

  "Zentans, hahnoom, " he groaned. "I think they have taken the same shortcut."

  Vesper was out of the coach before I could hold her. I followed, fuming at Nilo for this latest piece of idiocy. The incompetent lout had driven us into the very clutches he promised to avoid.

  Vesper had seized the reins and, with Nilo's help, tried to turn the horses around. I joined them, but all our efforts were useless. The cavalrymen had, meantime, sighted us and spurred their mounts in our direction.

  Four or five of the troopers were upon us within moments, springing from their saddles, pistols drawn. Two collared Nilo and flung him roughly against the side of the coach.

  The poor fellow was terrified, babbling pitifully, begging for mercy.
The Zentans ripped away his jacket, turned out his pockets, and searched him from head to toe. They found nothing, which seemed to disappoint and anger them. One of the troopers leveled his pistol.

  Vesper darted forward instantly. She gave the Zentan a sharp kick in the shins. While he yelped and danced on one leg, his comrade tried to seize Vesper's arms, for the dear girl had begun flailing away at him with both her fists.

  Here, I judged it essential for calmness to prevail in what could become a difficult situation. Taking out our travel documents, I hurried to step up and explain matters, at the same time pulling Vesper away from the troopers.

  "Let him be," Vesper ordered the Zentans. "He's our dragoman. "

  The trooper spat. "An Illyrian pig."

  "Talk about pigs—" Vesper began.

  "Hahnoom, say no more," pleaded Nilo.

  "I haven't started," replied Vesper.

  Fortunately, just then, one of the troopers came back with our papers. His attitude was more respectful than it had been. He went so far as to click his heels and salute as he reported that his officer was satisfied and impressed by our acquaintance with King Osman.

  "But this is an extremely dangerous area," he added. "We have already taken a band of these Illyrian brigands. Who knows how many more are hiding in these parts? My captain wishes to escort you pan of the way to Alba-Collia."

  I told him we would be glad for the protection. The Zentan returned to his comrades. Nilo, relieved, mopped his face and buttoned his torn jacket.

  ''Hahnoom, thank you," he murmured. Hesitant, he added, "I think—with permission—I should call you 'Graciva Lincilla.' In our language, pretty tiger cub."

  Vesper smiled at him. "I'd like that."

  The lout stood there gawking and grinning until I had to nudge him into the carriage. We set off again, the Zentan troopers leading.