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Christopher Stasheff

Allouene nodded, her face hard. “Occasionally/ a bastard might result from a lady’s inviting some strapping, handsome young serf in for the night, but far less frequently than the lords’ by-blows—it was a rare noblewoman who wanted to go through nine months of pregnancy ending in labor, for a peasant man. Far more often, the ladies, like the lords, only wanted pleasure, not more children. The lords could have used birth control medications of their own with their peasant wenches, of course, but they wanted to increase the population. Why not? The more there were, the more servants they had.”

“After all,” Magnus murmured, “a lord’s valet should be a gentleman, not a serf, should he not?”

Allouene frowned, even as she nodded. “You sound as if you know. Gar. But you’re right—and the steward of the estate should be better-born than the average laborer, and there was a need for lawyers, and for clerks to handle the drudgery of the trickle of trade, and to oversee the building of new houses and the laying out of new gardens, and to act in the theaters. …”

“So a class of petty aristocracy came into being,”

Ragnar interpreted.

Allouene shook her head. “Gentry aren’t noble, Ragnar—the lords make a very big point of that.

They’re a middle class, between the serfs and the nobility. In Europe, they came from the knights and the squires, and from the merchants; on Taxhaven, they’ve been given the same jobs, if not the titles.

But they’ve developed their own pedigrees and mores anyway. They’ve never owned land legally, but 132

when the same family of gentry has been in charge of the same hundred acres for three generations, it creates the illusion of ownership, and certainly a tie to the land. They’re allowed to earn money and save it in their own right, and are comfortably well-off, even sometimes wealthy in a small way. They resent their neglectful parent class, of course, but nonetheless, they side with the lords against the serfs, more or less automatically—they have something to lose, after all. Of course, there are always new gentlemen coming into being, not of the established families, and they’re scorned and looked down upon, and only allowed to marry one of the new gentlewomen—but their children are accepted, so the class keeps increasing in number. They’re the middle-rank officers in the army, the mid-level managers on the estates, the tax collectors and magistrates and squires.

They’re resented by the serfs, and resent the lords in their own turn—but each class knows its place, and knows the painful, even lethal, penalties for stepping out of that place, so the society endures, though not happily.”

So they were bound for a planet governed by grown-up spoiled brats who intended to stay that way, lording it over a population of serfs dressed in medieval simplicity and filth, with an intermediary class of gentry to take care of the day-to-day adminis-tration and the direct contact with the serfs.

Magnus could see why Allouene had decided they needed changing.

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The freelance asked, “Can you move quietly, in the wood?”

lan tried to smile. “I can try.”

“Well, then, let’s away.” The soldier turned to go, then stopped and looked back over his shoulder. “I cannot go on calling you ‘boy,’ ” he said. “It’s too clumsy. What’s your name?”

More danger—but lan was in the thick of it now. He might as well pray for the best and tell the truth. “lan,” he said. “Son of Tobin.”

“And I am Gar Pike.” The freelance smiled.

“Well, then, lan Tobinson—let’s away.”

They went onward under the trees, between the trunks, Gar as silent as the wind and almost as silent as the dwarves in his soft boots. lan plucked up his courage and followed.

They threaded their way through the back trails, so faint that lan could barely make them out. Every/p>

now and then. Gar would stop, cock his head, and listen. Then he would nod and lead lan forth. Several times, though, when he stopped to listen, he turned quickly into the nearest thicket, parting the bushes before him and stepping into their center, holding the bushes back for lan to follow, then pressing them back together and crouching down, motioning for lan to do likewise and pressing a finger to his lips for silence. When this happened, lan would do as Gar bade him and stay very still, breathing through his mouth. Then, after a while, he would hear the crashing and the crunching of the soldiers as they moved nearer. Several times they came almost to the thickets where Gar and lan were hiding and lan would hear them talking. They were afraid the lord would punish them for not having found the runaway youth. Each time this happened, lan’s body knotted with fear. Not so much as he had felt before—he did not panic; Gar would protect him, he knew, if it came to a fight. lan saw his own hands tighten on his quarterstaff, though, and remembered very well that Gar was, after all, only one man. If he had to fight trained soldiers, perhaps he would not be able to prevail. If that happened, lan resolved to guard his back for him. Though he was only a boy against full-grown men, he knew his quarterstaff-play well, and might be able to delay a second soldier long enough for Gar to finish with the first.

They travelled through the forest all night in this fashion, and the near brushes with the soldiers became less frequent. But near dawn, when they were 136

about to hide for the day, Gar suddenly turned aside from the trail. “Take cover, and quickly!”

lan leaped after him, pushing through some underbrush into the center of a thicket. There they crouched on the bare earth, for all the world like deer. “Down,” Gar murmured, though he himself only sat, “and be very still.”

There was more tension in him than usual. lan huddled under the leaves, wondering what was so much more dangerous this time.

Then he heard three voices. One of them was a cutting nasal whine—and lan’s heart raced, for he recognized it. “If we do not find him, serfs, the hide on your back will be scored!”

“But, my lord…” The soldier sounded exhausted.

“We have searched all night, we have searched all over the wood. Surely one of the other bands will have found him by now.”

“Impossible,” the other soldier snapped. Then, in a placating tone, “It is our duty to our Lord Murthren to search for the boy until we drop in our tracks, if need be.”

My lord Murthren! It was well the soldiers did not find them then, for lan could not have moved a hand or a foot. He was frozen, frozen with fear.

Gar cocked his head to the side, listening, interested.

“Well said, though fawning,” the nasal voice sneered. “Now get on and do your job, and search for him!”

lan trembled, recognizing Lord Murthren’s voice.

The lord snapped, “You would be wiser to die 137

searching for him, than to suffer my displeasure. He has violated one of the Sacred Places of the Old Ones! If we do not find and slay him, a curse, a murrain, shall fall upon all my land, my domains!”

lan’s eyes widened with fear. A murrain, a dread disease, spreading over all the whole duchy! Cattle wasting away and dropping dead in the fields—

perhaps people, too! He bowed his head, and squeezed his eyes shut against tears as the feeling of guilt within him grew, gaining strength. “One of the Sacred Places of the Old Ones”—was that the strange “Safety Base” into which he had strayed?

And how, then, did Milord Murthren know of it?

But the voices faded away. When lan could no longer hear them, he started to get up—but Gar’s hand fell on his shoulder, holding him in place. lan froze, then looked questioningly at Gar. The freelance laid a finger across his lips again, head cocked to listen.

Perhaps ten minutes longer they stayed in their places. Then Gar rose slowly, and lan, with a sigh of thanks, rose with him. His legs tingled as the blood flowed back into them. He stretched sore, stiff muscles, then looked up to find Gar gazing down at him quizzically. “So that was your crime! ‘One of the Sacred Places of the Old Ones’! That great stone egg in the center of the meadow—was that it?”

lan nodded, unable to speak.

Gar chuckled, shaking his head. “What supersti-tious fools, to fear such places!” he said. “Though I’m sure the lords cultivate the rumor. I know someone who sheltered in an Old Ones’ place himself 138

once, when his side lost the battle and the enemy was searching for him. He told me that the guardian spirits the Old Ones left are gentle to those who claim their protection—and if they laid a curse upon him, it was a strange one, for he lived well, and longer than many soldiers I have known.”

He looked about him, sniffing. “I smell dawn coming.” He turned away. “Come, lan! We must be out of this forest before the sun rises.”

lan looked after him, then stumbled into a run until he caught up with Gar. His legs seemed leaden with exhaustion, but if the freelance could push on, so could he. And within him, there was relief—if Gar had said it, it must be true. He need not fear the curse, nor the murrain upon Milord Murthren’s domain.

They came out onto the roadway as the sun peeked over the hills, and the sky was streaked with rose and gold. Gar looked around him, breathing deeply of the scents of the morning, then looked down at lan. “We are nearly to the end of our journey,” he said. “Half a mile down this road is a town, and I know a man there who will shelter us and ask no questions.” He smiled, warm and friendly. “Let your head lie easy, my lad. Once you are dressed in my livery, no man will question you. You are twelve good miles from the edge of Lord Carnot Murthren’s domains. In fact”—he chuckled—“they are apt to think you are still hiding in the forest, not far from wherever you entered it.” He cocked his head to the side. “How long has it been since you ran away from your home?”