Christopher Stasheff

‘Yes …’ Rod frowned, musing. ‘That’s not quite normal to this kind of society, is it, Fess?’

‘No, Rod. The theory of anarchy does not usually arise until the culture has attained a much higher degree of technology.’

Rod chewed at his lip. ‘Outside influence, maybe?’

‘Perhaps. And that brings us to the popular totalitarian movement: another anomaly. No, Rod, this is not the classic pattern.~

‘No, dammit. We’ve got three groups contending for power: the peasants, the dukes and their councillors, and the Queen and whoever supports her. That support seems to be limited to Brom O’Berin at the moment.’

‘Totalitarians, anarchists, and the Queen in the middle,’ Fess murmured. ‘Which one do you support, Rod?’

‘Catharine, dammit!’ Rod grinned. ‘I’m out to plant the seeds of democracy; and it looks like the only chance to do that is to engineer a constitutional monarchy.’

‘I might be mistaken,’ Fess murmured, ‘But I do believe you’re delighted to find you must support her.’

Around them the few lights were dimmed by the night mist, a wall of fog thirty feet away. Rod rode alone through a world of smoke; Fess’s hooves rang strangely weird in the echoing silence.

A long yell split the night, followed by the slapping clash of swords. ‘A rescue, a rescue!’ a young voice cried.

Rod froze, hand on the pommel of his sword; then he dug his heels into Fess’s metal sides, and the great black horse sprang toward the ruckus.

A torch smoldered red through the fog at the mouth of an alley.

There, under its smoky light, one man battled three, his back against the wall.

Rod bellowed and landed horse and all in the middle of the melee.

He laid about him with the flat of his sword, howling like an Indian studying to be a Confederate soldier. He yanked the dagger from the small of his back, just in time to catch a rapier coming at him from his left. His own sword swung in an arc over his head and clashed against steel as his opponent caught the blow.

Then steel points were jabbing up at him like sawgrass. Rod was forced back on the defensive, swatting the blades aside.

But the intended victim let loose a yell that would have shamed a banshee and waded in from the rear.

All at once the three swords fell away, their owners pelting down Christopher Stasheff

the alley. Rod sat a moment dazed; then he yelled and Fess sprang after the retreating figures.

But they gained the dark at the end of the alley and when Rod caught up, the stones were empty. It was a dead end; they had gone through one of the shadowed, evil-smelling doorways.

Their would-be victim came running up behind, looked about, and panted.

‘Gone, and no use to seek them further. They’ll be five leagues away in as many minutes.’

Rod swore and slapped his sword back into its scabbard. He winced, and touched his forearm gingerly; one of the rapier. points had slashed through his doublet and sliced his skin.

He turned to the stranger. ‘You all right?’

The young man nodded, sheathing his sword.

Rod looked down into an open, snub-nosed, blue-eyed face with a grin that flashed white through the fog. The cheekbones were high, and the eyes large and wide, with a look of innocence. Blond hair was cropped round in a bowl cut. It was a young, inexperienced, very handsome face - Rod felt a surge of resentment.

He swung down from his horse. The top of the youth’s head was about on a level with Rod’s eyes; but what the boy lacked in height, he made up in bulk. A barrel chest swelled into bull shoulders, a good six inches wider than Rod’s. The arms would

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have looked more appropriate on a bear or gorilla; and the legs were two small tree trunks, rammed into narrow hips.

He wore a leather jerkin over a white shirt, a wide black belt, hose, and high, soft boots.

He frowned, seeing the blood on Rod’s sleeve. ‘You’re hurt.’ Rod snorted. ‘A scratch,’ he said, and fumbled in Fess’s saddlebag for an antiseptic bandage. He wound the bandage around his forearm, threw the youth a bard grin. ‘You can pay the tailor bill, though.’

The boy nodded, blue eyes sober. ‘That will I gladly; for they would have cut my heart out, had it not been for your timely rescue. Tuan McReady stands in your debt.’

Rod looked him up and down, nodding slowly. A good kid, he thought.

He held out his hand. ‘Rod Gallowglass, at your service; and Christopher Stasheff

there’s no debt involved. Always glad to help one against three.’

‘Ah, but debt there is!’ said the boy, clasping Rod’s hand with a grip like a sentimental vise. ‘You must, at the least, let me buy you a tankard of ale!’

Rod shrugged. ‘Why not? I was on my way to an inn just now, anyway; come on along!’

To his surprise, Tuan hesitated. ‘By your leave, good Master Gallowglass … there is only one house in this town where I am welcomed. All others have known my custom of old, and’ -the round face suddenly broke into a grin - ‘my manner of living does not please the peaceful and proper.’

Rod grimaced, nodding. ‘Post jocundum juventutem. Well, one inn’s as good as another, I guess.’

The route to Tuan’s inn was somewhat out of keeping with his well-bred looks. They dodged down two dark alleys, wriggled through a weathered brick wall, and came out in a wide, moonlit courtyard that had been elegant in its day. That day must have been a century or two in the past. The remains of a fountain burbled in the center of cracked flagstones, sending up a stench redolent of primitive plumbing. Weeds, themselves in a state of dire poverty, poked through the paving everywhere. The brick of the walls was cracked and split, the mortar crumbling. Heaps of garbage lay by the walls and in the corners, with stray mounds of refuse here and there about the yard.

The inn itself was a rotting granite block with tumbledown eaves.

The overhanging second storey was propped up with roughhewn timbers, not to be trusted due to the infirmities of age. The windows were boarded over, the boards split, moldy, and fungoid.

The massive oak door was the only sound piece of wood in sight, and even it was sagging.

‘Ah, they tolerate your behavior here?’ Rod asked, surveying the stagnant courtyard as Tuan knocked on the door with the hilt of his dagger.

‘Tolerate, yes,’ said Tuan, ‘though even their hospitality is sometimes strained.’

Rod felt a chill between his shoulder blades and wondered just what kind of mild-mannered youth he’d run into.

Tuan knocked again. Rod wondered that be expected an answer; not a gleam of light showed through the sagging window boards. By the look of it, the place must be totally deserted.