Delia of Vallia by Alan Burt Akers Read Free Book Online

Strom Dogan nal Mellin, having cowered away in his topmost tower with his family, too frightened to risk contamination even in the short distance out of the town, had been hauled out of it by the empress.
    The hauling had been done by Tandu.
    “You will give orders to your people, and you will help, Dogan.” Delia had spoken in such a way that Dogan’s chattering teeth had almost splintered in his frenzy.
    Then: “Tandu — you have my permission to pull the strom out by his ears.”
    “Quidang, my lady!”
    So — Strom Dogan and his people had, unwillingly and fearfully, been pressed to assist the empress. The Empress of Vallia ordered, organized, controlled. She also wiped up filth and scrubbed floors.
    Sickness — the very idea of sickness nauseated her.
    When, as a young girl, she had been thrown by a zorca, her immediate reactions had been of fury at herself for so lamentable a display. The second thought had been one of surprise that her zorca, so brave and patient, a marvelous saddle animal, should have thrown her at all. But it was accidental.
    Only then — as the third reaction — had she discovered the injury to her leg. She had been made a cripple. She dragged one leg after her like a stamped-on crab.
    Getting over that, as her only way of phrasing it to herself, had involved a secret visit to the Swinging City of Aphrasöe arranged by her father the emperor, and then a surreptitious dip in the Sacred Pool of Baptism of the River Zelph arranged by the wild and savage clansman who was to become her husband. So she knew about these things.
    The stink in the strom’s Great Hall was prodigious.
    Sweet Ibroi was burned by the bushel. Water was continually sluiced down over the floor, to be swept away in foaming sheets of brown and yellow and green. Sometimes the water swept away red — when someone’s sores burst past all enduring. All the anti-pollutants available were used. How the contagion spread even the needlemen could not swear to. Better not to touch a sufferer. Better not to breathe too close to the air he or she had breathed. But, after that, what gods or demons hurled the sickness from one poor wight to the next?
    Pungent ibroi, a capital disinfectant much used to wash down slaves’ quarters when Vallia dealt in slaves, before the present emperor outlawed slavery, was consumed in vast quantities. At least, along with its sweet-smelling fellow it freshened the atmosphere.
    Strom Dogan, a bag of lard in Delia’s private opinion, quivered and shook. His wife, the Stromni, was made of sterner stuff. Her fears were for her family. These, Delia excused from caring for the sick on the understanding they would roll bandages. The town was dying. Someone had to care for the sick.
    If that person happened to be the empress — well, and wasn’t that one reason she was empress at all?
    “But, majestrix — your poor hands!”
    “Do not worry about my hands, Stromni. They are used to hard work.”
    Stromni Elspa shook her head and her soft brown Vallian hair slipped a little from the retaining pins. She could not understand the majesty and might of an empress in these conditions. By Opaz! If she, Stromni Elspa nal Mellin, was empress, she’d get the servants to handle the mess and take herself off into the country very smartly. If her husband had a little more moral fiber, they could have galloped through the infected streets and been clear away by now. They would not have been caught by this domineering woman and forced to act like common servants. The only reason Stromni Elspa tolerated the disgrace lay in the half-comforting thought that she must be storing up favors for herself with the empress.
    Cartloads of little blue flowers were brought in. They trundled in through the open gates. The flowers had been culled from where they grew in weed-like profusion among the cultivations. Dalki rode out with the carts and rode back with them. No one ran away.
    There were two sorts of little blue flowers. One