THE roomy apartments of Nisha Novil were furnished with a splendor that was almost barbaric, and Nisha herself was the most ornate object of all. Lying on a swinging divan upholstered with alternate stripes of orange and blue plush, she shot a languishing smile at Jerry from beneath her long, curved lashes, as he was ushered in before her.
The only cloth upon her shapely body was a silken cincture of orange trimmed with blue. Her small breast shields were of blue and amber beads. By any standard she was undeniably beautiful.
With a wave of her hand she dismissed the page. Then she spoke, her voice low, with a purring quality, like that of a kitten that is being stroked.
“You are prompt, Jerry Morgan, but why have you brought the bodyguard? Were you afraid I might injure you? As you see, I am unarmed.”
“Your Highness forgets that I am a prisoner under suspended sentence of death. The guards . . .
“Yes, to be sure. I had forgotten.” She addressed the two. “My slaves will give you pulcho in another room. Wait there until I send for you. I will be responsible for your prisoner.”
With respectful salutations, the two guards followed a brown slave girl through a curtained doorway. Then Nisha waved a slim hand, and the other slave girls who stood in attendance behind her filed out of the room. As soon as they were alone, the Princess rose with feline grace, and stood before Jerry, smiling up at him beneath languorous lids. She was no bigger than Junia, and much like her in appearance. Yet there was something about her, an untamed feral something in her every look and gesture.
“Come,” she said, taking Jerry’s hand and leading him to the divan. “You must be weary after your dual with Arsad. Come and rest here beside me while we talk.”
“I did lose some blood,” Jerry replied. “That was why I was about to ask Your Highness’s indulgence . . . ”
“But since I am dispensing with formality,” she cooed, drawing him down upon the divan, “you may rest here as well as in your own apartment. And what I have to say cannot wait, for there are those who plot against your life, and I would save you. Tomorrow will be too late.”
“Your Highness is most generous to take an interest in my life.”
She snuggled against him. “On the contrary, I am most selfish. From the very day when I first saw you, standing before the throne of Numin Vil, I have desired you.
“I heard of the suicide of the slave in your apartment, but did not grasp the significance at the time. However, when I learned of your duel with Arsad today, I knew that you had done something to displease my brother, and that where Arsad failed, another of Thoor’s tools would eventually succeed. So I had a talk with my brother.”
“I don’t know what I ever did to him,” said Jerry, “except that I turned one of his own sarcastic remarks against him, this evening.”
“That had some weight, but it is not the true reason for his bitterness against you,” she told him. “It began when our cousin, Junia, begged your life from Numin Vil after you had slain her dalf. I may add that those of whom Thoor becomes jealous never survive long.”
“It seems that I have been exceedingly fortunate, then.”
“Your skill with the sword saved you tonight,” she answered, “but other means of compassing your death have already been planned. Thoor Movil’s spies are everywhere, and when he heard of the look which Junia gave you in her apartment today, you were marked for death.
“And just what can you do about all this?” Jerry asked.
“Everything,” she replied. “I have made a pact with my brother. Your life is to be spared to me on condition that you never again cast your eyes toward our fair cousin.”
“So you have arranged the whole thing between you. Thoughtful of Your Highness. But did it not occur to you that I might have some ideas of my own on the subject?”
To his surprise, she flung her arms around his neck—pressed her warm lips to his.
Had he never seen Junia, it is quite possible that the Earthman might have capitulated. Gently he disengaged the clinging arms from around his neck, and arose.
Nisha fell back on the divan, panting. Then she sprang straight for the Earthman. Screeching curses, she beat upon his breast, scratched his bare flesh until the blood welled forth. And through it all he stood immobile, hands at his sides, teeth clenched in a grim smile.
Her fit of fury passed almost as suddenly as it had begun. With horror in her eyes, she stood limply before him.
“Deza help me!” she moaned. “What have I done?”
“Have I Your Highness’s leave to go?” he asked, with studied calm.
“No, wait! You must not leave me thus!”
She turned and ran into another room, reappearing a moment later with a basin of water, a handful of soft moss, and a bottle of jembal. Jerry stood like a statue while she washed away the blood and applied the healing gum to the scratches she had inflicted. Her ministrations finished, she looked up at him, tears swimming in her large black eyes and pearling the long lashes.
“Forgive me, my dear lord,” she begged, contritely. “Strike me! Break me with those strong hands of yours! But do not leave me with anger in your heart. Only say that you forgive me, and Deza will grant me strength to go on, knowing that I may some day win your love.”
“It is I who should ask forgiveness,” Jerry told her, “since you have only wounded my body. But I, it seems, have unwittingly wounded your heart.”
“You are generous, my lord,” she cried, and flinging her arms around his neck, crushed her lips to his. “Now go. But remember—Nisha loves you, and will be waiting.”
Without a word, he turned and left the room. He had taken the multiped vehicle to his own floor, the one below, before he noticed that his two guards were not following him. But he reasoned that they knew the way to his apartment as well as he.
Passing into the apartment, he hooded all the baridium light globes but one, preparatory to retiring. But, strangely enough, he no longer felt tired or sleepy. Feeling that a breath of air would do him good, he pushed open the two lower segments of the window, and stepped out onto the balcony. The night was unusually cold, even for Mars at that season.
Jerry threw back his head and inhaled a great lungful of the cold, sweet air. But he checked the inhalation with a gasp of amazement, for he saw, looking down from the second balcony above him, the lovely face of Junia. As she stood there, wrapped in her light, soft furs, he wished that he might bridge the gap between them.
She smiled, and Jerry returned her smile. Then she turned away and he saw her no more. But a plan had come to him. He could bridge that gap, with the aid of his earthly muscles. Less than eight feet above his head hung the tough coils of the vine which decked Nisha’s balcony. And he could see, by craning his neck outward, that the vines on Junia’s balcony hung even lower.
A few moments later, he stood on Nisha’s balcony. Fortunately for his plan, the vines on Junia’s balcony hung lower, and he was able to reach the lower most of these by a vertical jump, thus avoiding the necessity of running past the window.
The loop held and he easily made the balcony above. Like the other two, it was edged with potted plants, and at first he did not notice the figure standing at the opposite end in the shadow of an aromatic sebolis. But as he crept over the railing, he noticed a slight movement in the shadow, and his heart leaped to his throat. Could this be a guard—and he unarmed?
Jerry was unable to more than make out a muffled form standing immobile before him. Silently, he crept forward, and as silently sprang, flinging one hand about the arms and body of the figure and clapping his left hand over the mouth.
To his astonishment, he found that he clasped a woman. A muffled scream came from the girl as he dragged her out into the full light of the nearer moon.
“Junia!” he exclaimed, releasing her and standing shamefaced before her. “I thought you were a guard.”
“Just what are you doing on my balcony?” she asked. “And why would you have attacked a guard of mine?”
“I had to see you. There was no other way to see you alone. Oh, Junia, it seems that I am doomed to blunder each time I approach you—that the fates have conspired to make you hate me.”
“I—I don’t believe I could ever bring myself to hate you, Jerry Morgan,” she said softly. “But you are so clumsy. One scarcely knows what to do with you or how to restrain you.”
As she stood there looking up at him in the moonlight, Jerry reflected that this girl could do more to him with her eyes alone than could Nisha with her arms and lips—with her whole body.
“You have said that you had to see me,” she told him presently. “Why?”
“Because I love you.”
“You are bold to approach me thus, and bolder still to make such a declaration,” she said. But there was no hint of anger in her eyes.
“You are right, Highness,” he said dejectedly, “With your leave I will depart, and never trouble you more.”
But as he turned away, she laid her hand on his arm. “Wait, Jerry Morgan,” she said. “What if I were to tell you that I also care?”
“Junia! You can’t mean it.”
“But I do, Jerry Morgan.”
Gently, reverently, he took the tiny, fur-clad form in his arms. She raised her lips.
A moment they stood thus—a moment during which, for Jerry, all time stood still. Then she drew away.
“You must leave me, now. It grows late, and we may be discovered.” There was a catch in her voice that sounded like a stifled sob, as she added: “May Deza keep you safe, and bring you back to me, unharmed.”
Then she stepped into the darkness of her apartment.
For a moment Jerry stood there looking after her. Then he lowered himself over the railing, went down the vines hand over hand.
He found the apartment deserted, just as he had left it. Going to the door, he parted the curtains to see if his two guards had returned. They had not, and he was about to turn back when a man wearing the blue of royalty suddenly came running around a bend in the hall toward him. With a start of surprise, he recognized Manith Zovil. The Prince of Nunt carried a bloody sword in his hand, and blood was trickling from a wound on his breast.
Springing forward, Jerry caught him and helped him inside.
“What has happened, Highness?” he asked. “Were you attacked?”
“Attacked, yes!” panted Manith. “I have just slain that drunken fool, Shiev Zovil. For the love of Deza, help me get rid of this blood, or my life will be forfeit, and there will be a war more vast and deadly than Mars has ever seen before!”