“Majesty!” said Abdul, beaming. “Your people are gladdened by the sight of you! Will you deign to accept their allegiance now, or will you make a more formal ceremony?”
Tony said:
“Don’t talk nonsense! Look here! I was invited to this place to see the king! He tried to get me killed! I’m not pleased with him! If I’ve got to have an interview with him, I want to get it over with! Then I’ll go back to Barkut so the truce will be ended, and come back and start tearing things up. I’ve a sort of obligation—”
“Majesty!” protested Abdul. “You would endanger your so-precious life by entering his presence? What would become of me if by treachery—”
Tony scowled. “I’d like to see him try something!” he said sourly. “How about showing me the way?”
He wasn’t bluffing. The event of an hour or so ago, plus innumerable other oddities, had created in him a sort of fanatic disbelief in common sense. It suddenly occurred to him that his conscience hadn’t said one word to him since the fight with Es-Souk. It did not seem possible that his maiden aunt’s acid creation had ceased to exist—but still—
He winced.
His conscience was snarling bitingly that it was still on deck; but that his activities were so illimitably remote from sanity that they had no moral aspect at all. But, said his conscience—and it seemed to raise its voice—when it came to trying to make a business deal for the ownership of a poor slave girl whose morals were demonstrably so much superior to his own—
Tony straightened up. He felt better with his conscience nagging at him. More natural.