Clan and Crown

 

 

JERRY POURNELLE

and

ROLAND GREEN

 

 

Illustrated by JOSEP M. MARTIN SAURI

 

 

ACE BOOKS, NEW YORK

JANISSARIES: CLAN AND CROWN

Copyright © 1982 by Jerry Pournelle and Roland Green

Illustrations copyright © 1982 by Josep M. Martin Sauri

 

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without permission in writing from the publisher.

 

All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

 

An Ace Book

 

Published by arrangement with the authors

 

ISBN: 0-441-38294-0

 

First Ace Printing: November 1982

 

Published simultaneously in Canada

 

Manufactured in the United States of America

Ace Books, 200 Madison Avenue,

New York, New York 10016

 

 

PART ONE

 

 

Thrones and Dominions

 

1

 

The rocket sputtered for a moment, then rose swiftly above the worn cobblestone courtyard of the old fortress. It hissed upwards in a column of fire, trailing golden sparks and a faint smell of brimstone as it climbed until, without warning, it burst loudly into a shower of silver. The crowd gasped in wonder.

  High above the courtyard, two richly dressed boys about fifteen Earth years in age clapped their hands in wonder. They huddled together in a window cut in the wall of the keep thirty meters above the gawking populace. One of the boys shouted aloud when the rocket burst above Castle Edron.

  “Quiet! The Protector will hear us,” the other boy said. “He’ll make us join the others.”

  “He is nowhere about, Majesty.”

  “Ah.” Nothing like those rockets had ever been seen on the whole planet of Tran. Even kings should be able to gawk at them without losing status.

  But, Ganton thought, kings must think first of their dignity, and for the opinions of the nobility. No monarch ever needed his lords’ good opinions more than I do. Another rocket arced across the darkening sky. This one trailed blue sparks. “Oh-look!” he cried. The True Sun had long set, but the Firestealer was high enough to cast baleful shadows and light the summer sky above the fortress capital of Drantos.

  Ganton shouted again as yet another rocket burst. Ganton son of Loron, Wanax of Drantos, he might be; but he was also nine years old, fifteen according to the reckoning of the starman Lord Rick; and the rockets were fun to watch. “Perhaps we could make weapons from those,” Ganton said. “Do you think so?”

  “The Lord Rick says he will,” Morrone answered.

  He speaks in those tones, Ganton thought. They all do, when they speak of Lord Rick. They never sound that way when the talk is about me. They rebelled against my father. The wonder is that I lived this long. It is no time to be Wanax, but I have no choice of times.

  More rockets flashed upward from the palace courtyard. Each sent down silver and gold showers. One burst with a loud sound.

  “Was it like that?” Morrone asked.

  “Louder,” Ganton answered. “Much louder.” He had no need to ask what Morrone meant. “It was just a year ago.”

  “A whole army,” Morrone said. “All killed in an instant-”

  “No. Only their leaders were killed. We yet had a battle to win. Not that it was difficult, with the Wanax Sarakos dead, and all the starmen kneeling to Lord Rick. But the armies of Sarakos were defeated by good Drantos warriors, not star weapons.”

  Morrone nodded, but Ganton thought his companion didn’t really believe it. Sarakos had conquered nearly the whole of the Kingdom of Drantos. Until the great battle, Sarakos held the entire County of Chelm and most lands of the other great lords. His writ ran everywhere except into the hills where Ganton had hidden with the Lord Protector and the remnants of the loyalist forces. Sarakos had defeated the best Ganton had, had killed the first Lord Protector. Then the starman Lord Rick had come with the wild clansmen who obeyed his wife’s father, and in one day, one grand battle- More rockets flashed upward. “You spend fire-powder with both hands,” Morrone said.

  Ganton shrugged. “It is no small thing, the birth of the Lady Isobel as heiress to the greatest lord of Drantos. Besides, the firepowder was given to me by Lord Rick himself. Come, can’t I show my pleasure at the honor he does me, to have his child born in my capital?” And without my leave, although I would have given it cheerfully. He felt Morrone draw away, and wondered if his friend were angry. Ganton had few enough friends, and almost none his own age; soon, he supposed, Morrone too would treat him as Wanax rather than friend. All too soon. And that would be right and proper, but it would be lonely as well- “There,” Morrone said. He pointed toward the horizon to the south. “I can just see it. The Demon Sun.”

  Ganton shuddered slightly and hoped that Morrone wouldn’t notice. Only a star, the starmen had said. A star that wandered close to Tran every six hundred years. Not a demon at all, only a star.

  “It might as well be a demon,” Morrone said, as if reading his thoughts. “The Demon Sun comes, and we live in The Time.  His voice lost its banter, and took on the singsong notes of a priest. “The Time draws near, when oceans will rise. Storms shall rage, and gods will come from the skies to offer gifts. Woe to those who trade with gods, for after the gods depart there shall be smoke and fire and destfuction-” Morrone broke off as suddenly as he had begun. “There’s someone coming.” He pointed. “On the south road. “There, just below the Demon Sun.”

  Ganton stared into the dusky light. One of the Earthmen had told him that the Firestealer was as bright as a hundred full Moons, but the words meant little to Ganton. He was willing to believe that a place called Earth was the home of humanity, but the thought held little impact for him. Tran was home enough.

  The light of the Firestealer was more than bright enough to see by, but it made for tricky light, and cast strange shadows. But yes, there was a large party riding up to the south gate of the town. “Merchants, I’d say,” Ganton muttered.

  “Doubtless. From the southern cities, by their clothes. What would they be doing here?”

  “Come to make obeisance to me,” Ganton said. He chuckled.

  “It may be,” Morrone said. He sounded very serious.

  Ganton laughed aloud. “The southern cities would sooner give up their gods than their councils and assemblies and meeting halls. What could they possibly gain?”

  “Lord Rick’s protection,” Morrone said.

  And once again that tone, Ganton thought.

  “Caravan ho!” The guard’s challenge faintly reached their high perch.

  “They’re too late,” Morrone said. “The gates are locked for the night. But surely they know that.

  Someone in the caravan shouted to the sentries. Ganton couldn’t hear what was said, but it seemed to cause a stir. “Officer of the day!” the sentry shouted.

  Ganton frowned in puzzlement and looked at his friend. “What do you see?” he asked. “Who could cause such excitement?”

  Morrone shook his head. “I can’t make it out.”

  “The starmen have tools to see with,” Ganton said. “They call them binoculars.” He said the unfamiliar word gingerly. “Binoculars.”

  “You should have them,” Morrone said.

  Ganton shrugged. “Whose? They are the personal equipment of the starmen, and there are no more than a dozen of those—binoculars—in all this world of Tran. How should I have them?”

  “You are Wanax!” Morrone said. “These starmen are not great lords. The Lord Rick himself is no more than Eqeta of Chelm. Aye, and that only through his wife’s first husband. Ach. The Eqetassa Tylara no more deserves that title than I do. Less, for I was cousin to the last Eqeta, and she no more than his unbedded wife.”

  Ganton stared in amazement. He had heard complaints before, but none so open. “Yet when you speak of the Lord Rick,” Ganton said. “Your voice. You speak of him as you would of—of Yatar.”

  “Your pardon, Majesty. I spoke in haste—”

  “You will not do this to me!” Ganton shouted. “Finish what you have begun. What is this you say? If you have complaints against the Lord Rick, say them now. Speak to me as friend—”

  “I say no more than do hundreds of your loyal nobility,” Morrone said. “We respect the Lord Rick, and we would follow him-but we fear his upstart family. We fear they will bring their kilted barbarians to Drantos by scores.”

  “I would they would bring tens of scores of their archers,” Ganton said.

  “Perhaps. But when they loose their gullfeathered arrows who will wear the grey Tamaerthan plumage? Your enemies or your friends?” His voice fell.

  “Majesty. Ganton, my friend. I know it must be hard.”

  “Hard,” Ganton said. “Hard indeed. Even the Protector fears the Lord Rick and the star weapons. As he should. You were not there, but I was there, when the other starman, Parsons, the renegade, made common cause with Sarakos, and turned those weapons on my armies. Men, horses, all destroyed, and the sounds of thunder everywhere. No one safe. My Captain-General died at my side, and we five furlongs from the battle!

  “But it will change,” Ganton said. “I will not be in leading strings forever. Listen.”

  There were more shouts below. Then a rumble. “The gates,” Morrone said. “They open the gates, even at this late hour! Who?”

  “We must go see,” Ganton said. “Race you.” He leaped from the window seat and was down half a flight of steps before Morrone could follow.

  They raced down the stairs, shouting and laughing.

 

The Lord Protector was waiting for them at the second landing. His scarred, weatherbeaten face and the plain broadsword hung on his belt contrasted sharply with -the rich blue and scarlet court attire and jeweled chain of office. He was obviously far more at home in the saddle than the throne room.

  Ganton caught himself in mid-stride and drew himself to full height, trying to walk carefully and correctly, hoping that Camithon hadn’t seen him running. “Sire,” Camithon began. By Yatar, I’m for it now, Ganton thought. “Sire, you should not have absented yourself for so long,” the Protector said. “You do little honor to the lord and lady of Chelm, after they have so honored your house by bringing forth their first child here.”

  Once more, Ganton thought. Tell me once more how honored I am, and I will scream curses on your ancestors.”My house is honored indeed. But perhaps there were practical reasons as well? If the Lady Tylara bore her child in Chelm, her clansmen in Tamaerthon would be slighted-and if in Tamaerthon, would not the knights and bheromen of Chelm know insult? My house was a convenience to them. And to the realm, of course. To the realm.”

  Camithon frowned, and the great scar across his face grew dark. For a moment Ganton was afraid. The old warrior was perfectly capable of bending his sovereign over his knee-although, Ganton reassured himself, never in public.

  “It’s true enough,” Ganton insisted.

  Camithon nodded. “Aye. Yatar’s own truth. But there is such a thing as the right words at the wrong time.”

  “I heard a disturbance,” Ganton said. “I came to see.”

  “Aye. A starman. Come to see Lord Rick. With a gift.”

  Camithon didn’t have to explain the significance of that.

 

 

The walls were thick stone crowned with battlements. The gates were set in massive porticos, and made of heavy wood studded with large iron knobs. The small mounted party was barely through when the gates crashed shut, and they heard the locking bar, a log nearly as big around as a telephone pole, fall into place. Ben Murphy rode on in silence for a moment, then turned to his companion. “Guess it’s too late for second thoughts now,” he said in English.

  In contrast to Murphy, the other man was mounted on a centaur. It didn’t look much like the classical centaurs; the upper torso was more apelike than human, while the body itself resembled a moose as much as it did a horse. Its rider looked around through half-closed eyes. “I reckon we could get out of here,” he said. He reached forward to stroke the centaur’s back. “Dobbin and me’ve been through a bit on this stupid planet. Don’t reckon we’d let these city types stop us.”

  “Naw,” Murphy said. “We’d never make it.”

  “Hell we couldn’t.” Lafe Reznick patted the H&K battle rifle slung over his shoulder. “Say the word, Ben, and I’ll hold ‘em off while you break out the one-oh-six.”

  Murphy snorted. “And what’ll you bet they don’t have crosshairs on us right now?” He pointed up to the high tower of the castle that dominated the town. A skyrocket rose from the tower’s base as he pointed.

  “You really think the captain would do that?” Reznick demanded.

  Murphy shrugged. “Maybe not. But what about Mason? Or Elliot?”

  “Yeah. I forgot about Sergeant Major Elliot,” Reznick said. “Guess they all went over when Captain Galloway shot Colonel Parsons. And Elliot’s just the man to see we don’t get away.” He squinted up toward the castle. “Up there-or hell, maybe right over in one of those doorways with a submachine gun.”

  “He wouldn’t even need that,” Murphy said. “With those goddam Tamaerthan archers of his, Christ, they could have us stuck over with gullfeathers ‘fore you could unsling that H&K.”

  “You do think of the cheerfullest things.”

  “You say what?” One of the riders drew level with Murphy and threw back her hood. She was quite pretty, and much younger than the two soldiers. “You have afraid?” she asked.

  “Naw, I’m not afraid,” Reznick said. “Course not, Honey. I wouldn’t bring you here if I was afraid.”

  “I hear afraid,” she said. “The mounts know we afraid.”

  “Just nervous in the service,” Murphy said. “To your place, if you please, Lady.

  The girl started to say something, but checked herself. She halted to let Murphy and Reznick draw ahead and the three other women catch up to her. Then she began to chatter to them, speaking the native language far too swiftly for Murphy to understand her words.

  Murphy and Reznick rode on in silence until they reached the castle gates, which seemed at least as massive as the town portals had been. As they approached, the gates swung open.

  “Expectin’ us,” Murphy said. “Well, here we go.” He stood in his stirrups and turned to the group behind him. “No weapons,” he said, grinning to himself. I don’t speak this local stuff too bad, he thought. Better’n Honeypie speaks English. “No matter what happens, keep your hands off your weapons. You have seen our star weapons. These gentry will be watching us, and their captain has weapons to overpower any you have seen us use.”

  The women nodded solemnly. The five merchant adventurers behind them looked around uneasily.

  “They could get us bloody well killed,” Murphy said. “Tell them wives of yours I mean it.”

  “I already did,” Reznick said. “Christ, Ben, there’s times I can’t believe any of this.”

  “I know what you mean.” He shook his head wryly. “Fightin’ in Africa, ‘bout to be finished by the Cubans and we get picked up by a goddamn flyin’ saucer. And even then it don’t make sense. This whole planet, none of it makes sense.”

  “Except to Captain Galloway.”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “Hell, Ben, it was you said we ought to come here...”

  “You agreed,” Murphy reminded him. “I didn’t twist your arm.” He grinned. “Anyway, I still think it was best. That paper the Cap’n sent us, it said he really did understand things here. He knows why there’s people here, and what those saucer critters want, and-”

  “And you can believe as much of it as you want to,” Reznick said. He paused a moment, then matched Murphy’s grin. “And we both sure as hell want to believe a lot of it.”

  “Yeah. Let’s go.” He led the way through the open gates.

  The courtyard behind the gates smelled of burned gunpowder. It was packed with people. Archers in kilts held them back to make a lane that Murphy’s party could ride through. “Like MP’s,” Murphy said.

  “Big deal.” Reznick squinted upwards. “Don’t look now, but there’s a sniper up in the tower over the gate.”

  “Yeah, I spotted him. Don’t matter. There’s a dozen of those archer types on the wall up there, too. There’s sure as hell only one way to play this now.”

  The wall ahead of them was taller than the first, and the gateway through it was so narrow they had to go single file. The gate itself was a long maze-like corridor, with two twists barely wide enough for their mounts. Then they came out into an inner court, empty except for half a dozen richly dressed courtiers.

  “Welcome,” one called. “In the name of Wanax Ganton, welcome to Castle Edron. I am Parilios, Chamberlain to Wanax Ganton and servant to the Lord Protector, in whose name I bid you welcome yet again.”

  “Sounds good so far,” Murphy said. “Uh-we have come at the invitation of the Lord Rick, Eqeta of

  Chelm, Great Captain General of the Forces of Drantos, Colonel of Mercenaries. He gave the last title in

  English. “We are Benjamin Murphy do Dirstval and Lafferty Reznick do Bathis, Merchant Traders of the

  Sun Lands.”

  “The Lord Rick is here and awaits you eagerly,” the chamberlain said. “He has been foretold of your coming. He bade me say that his food will be no more than filling for his belly, and his drink no more than moisture for the tongue, until he has spoken with you at last.”

  “Fat chance the captain ever said that,” Murphy said sotto voce. “Bid the Wanax, and the Lord Protector, and Lord Rick a thousand thanks in our names, and tell him that we came in haste to his summons.”

  There was more ceremony before they were invited to dismount. Eventually they were led into an antechamber. A cheerful fire blazed at one end of the room, and there was a table laid out with wine and food. Washbasins stood on a sideboard. “I will leave you to refresh yourselves,” their escort said. He turned a pair of identical sand glasses, and took one with him. “I will return when this is done.” The chamberlain bowed and left them.

  The women began to chatter, but Murphy made a sharp gesture, and they fell quiet. He eyed the glass. “About twenty minutes. We going to take the women in with us?”

  “Why not?” Reznick demanded.

  Murphy shrugged. “This is royalist country,” he said. “Not like the south where we were. And the girls aren’t exactly out of the nobility-”

  “Dirdre and Marva are now,” Reznick said. “Married me, didn’t they? That makes them as good as anybody.”

  “Okay if you say so. Wonder where the bloody plumbing is?”

  “Through there, I’d say,” Reznick said. He walked over to a small curtained doorway and looked inside. “Yep. Looks to me like it hangs out over the town. Shall we go relieve ourselves on the commoners?”

 

 

“Cap’n?”

  Rick Galloway turned from the window as one of the skyrockets burst in crimson. “Yes?”

  “Two things,” Art Mason said. “Lady Tylara says you’re supposed to be downstairs enjoying the fireworks-”

  “Hell, I know that,” Rick said. He lifted a crystal goblet and tossed off the full cup of wine it held. “Three days we’ve been on display. Tylara likes all the fuss.” He grinned slightly. “Isobel really is a beautiful little thing. I guess Tylara’s earned all this glory. But why she wants it is beyond me.” He poured another drink.

  Mason shrugged. “I never claimed to understand women.”

  “What was the other thing?”

  “Murphy’s here.”

  “Murphy?”

  “Private Ben Murphy,” Mason said. “Along with Lafe Reznick. Two of the troops that ran away south with Warner and Gengrich. They just showed up at the gate, dressed up like rich southern merchants and attended by some women and bullyboys. Murphy told the officer of the guard that he’s got a present for the Eqeta of Chelm, the great Captain General of the Host of Drantos-”

  “Humph.”

  “Hell, he’s layin’ it on thicker’n glue, Cap’n. But I think you’ll like the present. It’s all wrapped up in silk and gold cloth, but it’s about yay long and maybe this big around-”

  “The recoilless!”

  “Could be,” Mason said. “It just could be. Anyway, he’s downstairs in the entry hall. I checked with Elliot and we had the chamberlain give him wine and some chow, and I figured I’d better get you before that Camithon gets at him.”

  “Yes. Good thinking. I’ll come.” He started toward the door.

  “Not without we dress you proper,” Mason protested. “Wait, Cap’n. I’ll help you into your armor.”

  “I do not need armor.”

  “Hell you don’t,” Mason said. “Cap’n, now dammit I mean it, don’t you go down there without your mail shirt. Here, take the pistol off. That’s it. Now duck-” Despite Rick’s protests, Mason eased him into a shirt woven of tiny metal rings.

  “Damn thing’s too heavy,” Rick said.

  “Wasn’t heavy it wouldn’t do much good,” Mason said. “Here, lift your arm-” Deftly he buckled Rick’s pistol and combat knife under his captain’s left arm. “Now you look proper.”

  “And feel like an idiot.”

  “No, sir.” Mason was emphatic. “You gotta be practical.”

  I’ve been practical all my life, Rick thought. I do the sensible, practical thing, and I feel like a coward half the time.

  Mason saw Rick’s expression. “Cap’n, you don’t know what Murphy wants. I grant you, he probably didn’t come to make trouble. Not coming inside the gates like that. But Christ, Cap’n, this whole place is about to explode. Ambassadors from both Roman outfits. That diplomat from the Five Kingdoms, he’s nothing more than a spy-hell, they’re still technically at war with us! Not to mention our own nobles. Wasn’t an hour ago I had to disarm two of those barons, Dragomer and Kilantis-”

  “Who?”

  “Couple of the barons who went over to Sarakos,” Mason said. “Took advantage of the amnesty after we beat Sarakos. They come from the north central hills.”

  “Yeah. I remember,” Rick said. “Hard to blame them for going over, being that close to the Five Kingdoms and all. Why disarm them?”

  “Fighting over something. I didn’t bother to find out what. Just got their dirks.”

  “They drew steel in the palace?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where was Wanax Ganton?”

  “Up watching the fireworks,” Mason said. “Hell, Cap’n, if they’d drawn weapons while the kid or the old geezer was there I’d‘ve done a lot more than disarm them, you know that.”

  “Yeah. Sorry. All right, let’s go.” He led the way to the thick nail-studded door and pulled. It opened slowly. It ought to, Rick thought. The damn thing must weigh five hundred pounds in this gravity. One heavy mother. There were men outside the door. Rick nodded to Jamiy, his orderly, and the brace of Guardsmen. Then he turned to the fourth man who stood stiffly aloof from the others. “Captain Caradoc.”

  “My lord.” Caradoc was dressed in bright-colored kilts. He wore a jewel-handled dirk at his waist. A bow and quiver hung over his shoulder. He was no older than Rick. Caradoc bowed deeply, and waited until Rick returned the greeting before straightening.

  “It’s good to see you again,” Rick said. “How went your journey?”

  “Well enough, my lord. I had fast horses and Yatar’s favor.”

  “I’m pleased to hear it.” Rick put as much warmth in his voice as he could. More than once Caradoc had saved Rick and his family. Caradoc was really Tylara’s man, henchman of her father, son of one of her father’s subchiefs. Loyal men high in the Tamaerthan clan system were rare...

  “We’ll go down to audience hall,” Mason said. One of the guards went ahead at a trot. The second walked ahead of Rick. Mason walked alongside Rick, with Jamiy and Caradoc following.

  All this rigmarole just to go downstairs, Rick thought. Places of honor and all. And yet there really are damned few I can trust to walk behind me with weapons.

  They went down a narrow stone stairway to a broad hall hung with tapestries, then along that to an arched entry into a much larger chamber.

  Rick had just gotten inside when he heard a gravelly voice call, “Make way. Make way for the Wanax of Drantos.” A party came through another entrance. First two men-at-arms. Then the King’s Companion, Morrone, a lordling Rick found a bit pretentious. Next came Camithon, the scar-faced Lord Protector.

  “Who ranks who?” Mason asked in English.

  “I’ll have to think,” Rick said. It was a hell of a complex question. As Protector, Camithon ranked everyone except the king. On the other hand, before he became Lord Protector he’d been Tylara’s general, and he held most of his lands as a mere bheroman in her service. If that wasn’t complex enough, Rick and Tylara were technically host and hostess here, since Wanax Ganton had generously offered his palace to Tylara during her confinement and delivery. Which made Camithon guardian to Rick’s honored guest- “My lord,” Camithon growled. He bowed slightly.

  Rick bowed in return, then bowed even deeper to Ganton as the boy came in.

  “Majesty,” Rick said. “I trust you have enjoyed the celebrations.”

  “We have,” Ganton said. He looked around at the minor nobility and others who had come into the hall.

  The boy’s all right, Rick thought. Got a pretty level head. And he listens to Tylara. Then there’s the rest of these. Half of ‘em want to make me a god, and the other half want to put a knife in my ribs. “Majesty, I would ask a favor,” Rick said. “The use of your hall to receive these starmen.”

  “This is your house,” Ganton said ritually. “I wear no crowns while you and your lady are here. I would ask that you allow me the pleasure of watching you receive your friends.”

  “Certainly, sire. And my thanks.”

  One end of the room was dominated by a throne on a high dais. Below that was a lower dais with less elaborate chairs. Yanulf, chief priest of Yatar Day father, was already there. So was Sigrim, high priest of Vothan One-eye, Chooser of the Slain. They did not rise when Rick came to the dais. As he took his seat on the lower platform there was a stir at the door. Tylara had arrived.

  She looks pale, Rick thought. She’s still so damn beautiful it almost hurts to look at her, though. Her raven black hair shone as always, and her eyes were startlingly blue. There wasn’t much to show that she’d been through a difficult labor, forty hours in the House of Yatar. Rick shuddered at the memory. If he’d lost her- He couldn’t follow that thought. “Sweetheart,” he said in English. Then more formally for the court, “My lady. Will you join me?”

  “Thank you.” Her voice was like ice, and there was winter in her smile as she sat beside Rick.

  Christ. I didn’t send for her, Rick thought. I should have, but I just forgot. But-”I am pleased that you were able to join us. When you did not come I worried.” And that ought to make her wonder. “Chamberlain, summon our guests if you please.”

  “You sent for me?” Tylara demanded.

  “Benjamin Murphy do Dirstval and Lafe Reznick do Bathis, Star Lords and Merchant Traders of the Sun Lands,” the chamberlain announced.

  “Ah,” Rick said to himself as Murphy came in. I remember him now. Belfast Irishman. Made a bundle playing poker until most of the others wouldn’t play with him. Nobody thought he was cheating. Just good. Good man with the light machine gun, too.

  He couldn’t recall very much about Reznick, except that he always teamed with Murphy.

  Murphy and Reznick came to the dais, followed by two women and four men, obviously armed servants. The men carried something heavy and bulky wrapped in silk and cloth of gold. They reached the dais and looked at Rick in mild confusion. Then Murphy stamped to attention and saluted.

  Automatically Rick returned the salute. Then he laughed. “You’re supposed to bow or kneel or something,” he said in English. He heard a strangled grunt from Tylara as she suppressed a laugh. “Welcome to my house.” Rick changed to the local dialect and raised his voice. “It is good that we meet again. Your other friends among the starmen will welcome you also.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m happy to be signing up with you again, Captain,” Murphy said. “And I’ve brought you something-”

  “Yes. I’m damned glad to get the recoilless back. That is the one-oh-six, isn’t it?”

  “Sure is.” Murphy turned and gestured. His companions unwrapped the tube. Another took the cover off the tripod stand, and clapped the barrel onto it.

  “You’ve trained them to use it?” Rick asked.

  “Not really, sir,” Reznick said. “But they have seen us use the thing.”

  “Yes. We’ll continue this in private,” Rick said.

  “Meanwhile, there’s a ceremony. We’ll coach you.” He motioned to Murphy to kneel, and said in the local language, “We will accept you to our service. Do you offer me service, of your free will, according to the customs and uses of this land?”

  “We do,” Murphy and Reznick said in unison.

  “Then your enemies shall be my enemies, and who wrongs you wrongs me,” Rick said. He held out his hands. “Place your hands between mine. There. Now repeat after the chamberlain. . .“

 

“Thank Ghu that’s over,” Rick said.

  “Who is Ghu?” Tylara asked seriously.

  “Uh—a local deity back on Earth. Probably no jurisdiction here.” He watched Murphy and Reznick leave the audience hall, and felt an overpowering urge to go with them. Fat chance, he thought. Now that the fireworks are over we have to go show Isobel off to every goddam bheroman and knight in the joint, and get the king’s blessing and—“You needn’t smirk about it,” Rick said.

  “Your desire is obvious,” Tylara said. “It will do you no harm to be patient. Tonight you must be with me.”

  “Yeah.” It was important. Tonight’s ceremonies were supposed to be fun, but they would also mark his formal acknowledgment of Isobel’s paternity. Until he did that, she was officially no more than a little bastard.

  And Isobel was the most beautiful little thing he’d ever seen, and he certainly wanted everyone to know she was his—which still seemed like a miracle—but Lord, Lord, those lords were dull....

 

 

2

 

 

“What now?” Reznick asked.

  “The first thing I want is a drink,” Ben Murphy said. They were led through corridors, then up stairs, then down a flight. “And I think I’m lost. Ho, guide there, where are our companions?”

  “Your ladies have been shown to their chambers. You are wanted in the Orderly Room.” The trooper who led them obviously spoke no English; but they had no difficulty recognizing the last two words.

  Reznick laughed. “Just like the real army.” They followed their guides until eventually they were led to a stone doorway guarded by two kilted archers. Murphy nudged his companion. “More of those MP’s. Okay, let’s go in. . .”

  “Hats off in the orderly room,” a voice said in English.

  “Bat puckey,” Murphy muttered, but he took off his hat. He stared at the heavily bearded man who’d spoken. The man stared back, grim-faced. “Who—Warner? Larry Warner?”

  “Sure is.” Warner grinned broadly. “Here to welcome the geeks bearing gifts. How are you, Ben? Lafe? You’re looking good. New beards and everything.”

  “Warner, for God’s sake, we thought the locals took you off to sell you.”

  “They did. Sold me to Lord Rick.”

  “You look pretty rich,” Reznick said. “For a slave.”

  “I’m no slave,” Warner said. “Fact is, I’ve got the softest duty there is. Here, have a drink.” He poured generous dollops into silver cups. “Go on, drink up.”

  “Yeah.” Murphy drank. “Holy Mother, Larry, what is that stuff?”

  “Potent, eh? You bet your arse it’s potent. That’s McCleve’s work. Can you imagine him doing without a still?”

  “No. What’s the old lush doing now?”

  “He’s Professor of Medicine at the University of Tran.”

  “The which at what?”

  “Professor of Medicine. At the University. Of Tran.”

  “Tran’s the name of the whole goddam planet,” Reznick protested.

  “Right on,” Warner said. “And now it’s got a university. Come Murphy, surely you’ve been hearin’ of the University?”

  “Oh, crap,” Reznick said.

  “Yeah,” Murphy agreed. “One of the best things about staying down south was not having to listen to your crazy accents—Hey, what are you doing?” Warner had gone to the door and was gesturing to the guards outside.

  “Sending for the MP’s,” Warner said. “You man, get the Corporal of the Guard.”

  “What for, because we didn’t like your stupid accent?”

  “No, you’ll see, it’s nothing to worry about. A detail somebody forgot to attend to. Anyway, about the University. About half teaching and half research. McCleve teaches the acolytes of Yatar about sanitation and cleanliness. I teach math. Campbell does engineering. Even the Captain takes a stint at teaching. But mostly we’ve got teams of students and acolytes doing research. Soap. Substitutes for penicillin. Grinding microscope lenses. Figuring out how to make nitric acid. All kinds of stuff. And history, too.”

  “Professor,” Murphy said. “We used to call you ‘Professor’ back in Africa.”

  “Now it’s for real,” Warner said.

  “So just where do you fit in?” Reznick demanded.

  “Think of me as a kind of warrant officer,” Warner said. “That’ll be close enough. Ah. Here’re the guards. Corporal, these star lords have not had their weapons peace bonded.”

  “Yes, sir.” The Guardsman gestured, and two of his troopers used thick line to tie Murphy’s sword into its scabbard. They finished with an elaborate knot. Then the corporal took out a thin copper dish of red wax. He melted the wax over the lamp on the orderly room table and sealed the knot with a flat lens-shaped stone. Then they began working on Reznick’s weapon.

  “What the hell’s this for?” Reznick demanded.

  “Orders,” Warner said. “Here, have another drink, and I’ll tell you things.” He waited until the locals had finished their business and left. “Officially, this whole palace is under the king’s peace,” Warner said. “No challenges can be issued here. In fact, though, there’s lots of nobles with the hereditary right to fight their enemies even on palace grounds. But they can’t challenge one of you to immediate combat since you’ve got your weapons bonded.” Warner shrugged. “Protests you and the locals both. . .”

  “What about—” Murphy cut himself off.

  “Pistols?” Warner asked. “You’ll turn those in here and now. Uh—I got to search you, too.”

  “You and which army?” Murphy demanded.

  Warner shrugged. “Thought you’d rather have me do it than Mason,” he said. “But if you’d rather deal with Mason. Or Sergeant Major Elliot—”

  “No way,” Murphy said. “I’ll sit still for it. Here.” He took out a .45 Colt Mark IV automatic and laid it on the desk. “My combat knife too?”

  “No, you keep that for your own protection. I expect you’ll get your pistol back in a couple of days, too, after you’ve learned a little about life here.” He eyed Reznick suspiciously. “Lafe, I expect you’ve got a hideout gun somewhere. Let me give you some good advice. Be damned careful whom you kill, self-defense or not. The clan system is really strong here. You kill one guy and you got a hundred relatives after your blood. Not to mention the Captain if you knocked off one of the people he needs.” Warner wrote out a receipt for the firearm. “Now you, Lafe.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Reznick said. He laid his .45 on the table. “Okay, what now?”

  “Now I take you to the party,” Warner said. “And try to brief you on all the stuff that’s going on. Not that you’ll understand it. I don’t understand it myself, and I’ve been around a year.” He paused. “Why’d you come in, anyway?”

  “Seemed like a good idea,” Murphy said. “It’s getting messy down south. Sea raiders. Big wagon trains coming north, lots of weapons and bringing their whole families and damned well going to find a place to live. Looks like things are really bad a thousand miles south of us. Famine, war, plague—you name it.”

  Warner nodded. “We’d heard some of it. ‘The Time approaches, when the seas shall rise.’”

  “They have, too,” Reznick said. “About half of Rustengo’s docks are awash, and the harbor area is salt swamp.”

  “It’ll get worse,” Warner promised. “Still, you guys had a good setup. Got titles and everything.” He chuckled. “I don’t remember Dirstvar giving out city knighthoods to mercenaries.”

  Ben Murphy chuckled. “Yeah, but I like the ring of it. ‘Benjamin Murphy do Dirstvar sounds better’n Private Murphy, CIA. . .”

  “So why’d you give up all that?”

  “Did we? You told that MP we were ‘star lords.’ I heard you.”

  “Well, it’s a little complicated,” Warner said. “Far as the locals are concerned, you’re important merchant traders from the south. That’s near enough to noble, up here. But I’d act real respectful to Sergeant Major, was I you. And Art Mason’s an officer now.”

  “Suits us,” Reznick said. “We want to get along here.”

  Murphy nodded agreement. “Yeah. It’s pretty bad down south, Larry. Damn all, it’s getting worse, and nobody down there is going to watch our backs. We had each other, and Lafe’s wives, and nothing.” He stopped for a second, then went on. “Used to be, I had a wife. Nomads killed her. Lafe and I hunted the bastards for a ten-day. Hell with that. Anyway, one day the pistols will run dry. Or somebody’ll catch us and torture us for our secrets. You heard the fables, about what they do to the Little People here?”

  Warner nodded. “Grim fairy tales indeed.”

  “So when we heard Colonel Parsons had bought it, and the rest of the troops was doing all right and there wasn’t even any war to fight~-well, I figure Cap’n Galloway will take care of us. He always tried when we was back home.”

  They stood on the balcony behind the musicians and looked down at the grand hall with its kaleidoscope of colors. The granite walls had been hung with tapestries and rich colors, but the place still had a fortress-like look to it. Nearly everything on Tran did.

  The musicians seemed in good form. Someone had brought up wineskins, and clay goblets were going around freely. Every few minutes someone raised a toast to the Infanta Isobel, and everyone had another drink. The music seemed mostly strings and drums, with little of the thin reedy wails that Murphy had become used to in the south. Most of the music was incomprehensible, but sometimes they struck up tunes Murphy recognized. “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” the drinking song from Student Prince, “Garry Owens”...

  Murphy estimated three hundred people were crammed into a hail built for half that many, and all were wearing their best clothes, which meant the most colorful.

  “There’s a hell of a lot of those MP’s out there,” Reznick said. “Who are they?”

  “Well, technically they’re Guardsmen to Mac Clallan Muir,” Warner said.

  “Mac which?”

  “Mac Clallan Muir. Look, Captain Galloway—there he is, recognize him?—Captain Galloway married the Lady Tylara do Tamaerthon, widow and dowager countess—well the local title is Eqetassa, but that’s pretty well countess—of Chelm. That made the Captain Eqeta. Lady Tylara’s father is an old clan chief named Drumold. Tamaerthon has a goofy system of titles that nobody understands, but Mac Clallan Muir is Drumold’s most important one. He made his son-in-law his war chief.”

  “War chief,” Reznick said. “Of what?”

  “In theory, of all of Tamaerthon,” Warner said. “In practice, Captain Galloway’s war leader of all the clans that’ll take orders from Drumold. That’s most of ‘em, but not all. There. That’s Drumold over there.” He pointed to a man in bright kilts studded with silver pins. He wore a dozen gold bracelets, and several gaudy necklaces. Warner noticed Murphy’s grin. “Yeah, I think so too, but you better never say nothin’ he can hear. Old bastard’ll split your liver in a second, and don’t think the Captain would do much about it, either.

  “Anyway, back to the MP’s. As war chief of the clans, Captain Galloway was entitled to a bodyguard. What he did was have Art Mason recruit a whole mess of ‘em, lots more than anybody expected, and use ‘em for military police. Not just young nobles, either. Kids from different clans. Even clanless ones, and freed slaves—”

  “So now the only clan they’ve got is Captain Galloway,” Murphy said.

  “Yeah. Exactly,” Warner said. “Smart of you.”

  “Just like us,” Reznick said. “But where do we fit in?”

  “Sort of like a headquarters company,” Warner said. “First thing is you’ll probably be posted back to the University and told to write down everything you remember. Everything. Then there’s the travelling schools. You’ll learn about them. Main thing to remember is that Captain Galloway’s our boss and we’re all right if we don’t forget it.”

  “But these MP types. Excuse me, but this is Drantos. Tamaerthon isn’t even a part of this kingdom, is it?”

  “No. But remember they’re supposed to be Captain Galloway’s bodyguards, and he’s the host this tenday. Outside the palace Art’s MP’s wouldn’t have any jurisdiction ‘cause we’re not in Tamaerthon, but Lord Rick—that’s what they call the captain here—theoretically put them under the command of the Lord Protector. That one.”

  He pointed to a big scar-faced man with a perpetual scowl. “So they’re keeping order in the kingdom as well as in this palace,” Warner finished.

  “And Corporal Mason takes orders from that Protector guy?”

  “Major Mason. Sure he does,” Warner said. “Sure.”

  “Christ, this is worse than the south,” Reznick muttered.

  Warner laughed. “Just getting started, Lafe. See those two? There, and on the other side of the room-”

  “Yeah?”

  “Romans. The one on the right is ambassador of the Emperor Flaminius—”

  “And the other one from Marselius,” Murphy finished. “Yeah. We’ve got a lot to tell the Captain about that situation.”

  “Oh? Like what?”

  Murphy looked thoughtful. “Larry, not that we don’t trust you, but the only thing we got left to deal is information. How about I tell the Captain, and he tells you?”

  Warner chuckled. “We’re learning, Ben. You’re learning. Shall we go downstairs and join the party? Your ladies and friends will be along in a minute. Try to stay sober, and for God’s sake don’t insult anybody.”

 

 

3

 

 

Rick’s head was bursting. Hangover remedies didn’t work any better on Tran than on Earth. Not as well. There was precious little aspirin on Tran, and a lot more fusel oils in the liquor.

  “Two hours and I’m for the Grand Council,” Rick said. “Holy Yatar, my head is killing me—”

  “You earned it,” Tylara said. “I thought you had determined to drink all the wine in Edros.”

  Close to right, Rick thought. I don’t do that too often, but last night—Oh, well. What’s really irritating her is that I was too drunk to pay attention to her after the party. “You will come to Grand Council, of course.”

  “Of course,” she said. “Shall I accompany you now?”

  “I think no,” Rick said. “I think I’ll get more information if I talk to them in English.”

  “As you will.”

  “Dammit, I’m not keeping secrets from you.” He went to put his hands on her shoulders, but she seemed to draw away from him. “All right. I’ll see you in Council.” He left the bedroom hoping that she would call him back, but she said nothing.

 

He went downstairs to the stone chamber he’d had fitted out as a situation room, a copy of his offices in Tamaerthon. There were maps painted on three walls; the fourth was blank white, with charcoal nearby to write with. A big wooden slab table filled the room’s center. Benches surrounded it; benches weren’t comfortable, and that made for short meetings. In contrast, Rick’s chair at the head of the table had been specially carved for him, with padded seat and thick arm rests. If need be he could out-sit those who argued with him in this room. “Ten-shun!” Elliot commanded as Rick came in.

  The troopers around the table stamped to their feet. Murphy and Reznick seemed a bit surprised, but they didn’t object. Rick said nothing until he had taken his place at the table’s head and sat down. Then he nodded. “At ease,” Elliot said.

  “Thought we left that crap behind with Parsons,” Murphy muttered.

  “That’ll do,” Sergeant Major Elliot said sharply. He didn’t like people who talked back to officers. Elliot’s idea of perfection was an officer who knew his place commanding troopers who knew theirs. Of course the Sergeant Major was indispensable under any such scheme...

  “Two reasons for this meeting,” Rick said. “To find out what you know about the southern situation, and to bring you up to speed about the mission here. I’ll start off.”

  Only where? he wondered. There’s so damned much they don’t know. So damned much I don’t know. Humpty Dumpty told Alice to begin at the beginning and go through to the end. Then stop. But if I do that I’ll be here all day.

  “First, the basic mission hasn’t changed,” Rick said. “We’re here to grow crops for the Shalnuksis, and if we don’t grow their damned surinomaz they won’t trade with us, meaning no more modem conveniences. So we’ve no choices there.”

  “Captain, are you sure those those saucer things are coming back?” Murphy asked.

  “Not entirely,” Rick said. “But they told us they were, and they left communications gear. The pilot told Gwen Tremaine that the surinomaz crop was important, both to him and the Shalnuksis.” And he left her a transceiver. Left her pregnant, too. So now she’s got a year-old kid with no father within light years.

  “The trouble is,” Rick said, “that surinomaz isn’t easy to grow. The locals call it ‘madweed’ and they hate the stuff.”

  “Uh—“

  “Yes, Warner?”

  “Captain, just ‘fore I left the University, we got reports about witch women and shamans who used madweed for a useful drug.”

  “We’ll want to check that out. Bring it up in the Science Council meeting.” Another meeting, after the Grand Council. All I do the whole day through is sit in meetings—

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Anyway. We need a lot of the stuff, and people don’t want to grow it. Land’s limited. With that rogue star coming close the growing seasons will be longer, and we can get more food out of each acre but somebody’s got to feed the people who grow madweed for us. For years. We’ll want at least four years of bumper crop of the junk.”

  “So that’s one problem. We need peace, only that rogue star is playing merry Hobb with the whole planet. I saw your reports, Murphy. Migrations. Wandering tribes in the south. I’m not surprised—fact is, it’s going to get worse. What’s the chances of holding off the migrations at the borders of the city-states?”

  “Not much, sir,” Murphy said. “If we could have done it, I would have, rather than come up here.”

  Rick nodded. It’s like a ball of snakes, he thought. “What if I sent a big force? Twenty mercs and a couple of thousand local warriors?”

  Murphy shrugged. “I don’t think that would work very well,” he said. “First thing, the city-states might not let your troops through without a fight. But even if you made some kind of alliance with them, there’s not much for a defensible border down there.”

  “That was my impression,” Rick said. He pointed to one of the maps on the wall. “But it also looks as if eventually there’ll be impassable swamps to the south, after the Demon Star melts enough ice to get the seas up forty or fifty feet. Until then we’ll just have to do the best we can. Now what do you hear of the Roman situation?”

  “Stand-off,” Murphy said. He turned to Reznick and got a nod of confirmation. “At first Marselius was winning. Had new tactics that I reckon he learned from you. But now old Flaminius has recruited some new legions and called out his reserves, and he’s holding his own.”

  “Okay. I’ll want all you know about that. Order of battle, force levels, anything you’ve got.” Rick glanced at his watch. “You’ve got about an hour. Tell me.”

 

Drumold drew himself to his full height, resplendent in bright kilts and golden bracelets. There was no doubt that he spoke not as Rick’s father-in-law, but as Mac Clallan Muir, Grand Chief of the Clans of Tamaerthon.

  His words echoed through the council chamber. “Man, are ye altogether daft?”

  Rick tried to smile. It wasn’t easy. The echoing voice hurt his head. For a moment he wondered just how many wars had begun because some king or general had come hung over to an important council meeting. Tylara’s father had his rituals, and this was one of them; but there were plenty in the Grand Council who didn’t know Drumold. For that matter there were plenty who did, and who might make political capital out of even the appearance of a quarrel between Rick and Drumold. “No more so than yesterday, I think. And today I am better informed.”

  “Och, perhaps I spoke in haste,” Drumold said.

  Lord, do I sound that grim? Rick wondered. He looked to Tylara, but her look was no help this time. Often she could interpret the impact Rick was making; despite her youth she’d had a lot more experience leading these hotheaded people than Rick had, and she’d presided over her own Councils before Rick ever met her.

  “Yet,” Drumold was saying, “let us think clearly what we want, and how best to get it. So long as Marselius and Flaminius make war, they can not send one legionary against us. Let them make peace—or let one side win—and where are we? Rome has long claimed the whole of Tamaerthon. Och, aye, there was a time when they claimed Drantos, indeed all this world of Tran. And will Marselius be such a friend and ally once he is undoubted Caesar and has no need of us?

  “My Lord Rick, you propose to make an end to this war, even spend our blood and treasure to do it! I say you have not been well advised, and I understand it not.”

  There were loud murmurs, but no more than Rick had expected, given the number of people packed into the room: so many that the table, the largest in all of Drantos, could not hold them, so that many of the lesser nobility, as well as commoners, sat in chairs-set in rows stretching all the way to the far wall.

  The table itself held too many for a sensible meeting. The young Wanax Ganton, nominally in charge but delegating that to Rick; the Lord Protector Camithon, scarred face glaring at anyone who opposed him or forgot the least courtesy due the king; three of the five great counts of Drantos, four counting Rick and Tylara. Like William-and-Mary, Rick thought. Rick-and-Tylara, a two-headed monster to rule Chelm. Some of the wealthier bheromen and knights. Guildmasters. All to represent the Kingdom of Drantos.

  Then the priesthoods. Old Yanulf, splendid in blue robes, scowling because the Council bickered instead of getting on with preparations for The Time. Sigrim, high priest of Vothan One-eye, Chooser of the Slain, a warrior god everyone feared and few loved. Florali, the elderly lady—Rick thought of her as a vestal virgin although she was a widow—to represent Hestia, the Good Goddess of grain.

  The composition of the Council came from long tradition. Men had died contesting the right to sit in Council. Reducing its size was nearly impossible. King, lords, commons, and priestly orders together made up the Great Council of Drantos, an unwieldy structure at best; but there were lots more at today’s meeting. Drantos was allied with Tamaerthon. Some of the Tamaerthan clansmen put it more bluntly. Tamaerthan warriors, led by Lord Rick, had only the year before saved Drantos from occupation by Sarakos, Heir Apparent of the Five Kingdoms, and despite the relative sizes of the two lands many clansmen thought Tamaerthon was and ought to be the senior partner. Certainly Tamaerthan chiefs and warriors must sit in the Grand Council. Consequently, one side of the table was filled by kilted hill tribesmen, scarcely thought more than barbarians by the great ones of Drantos—but they kept those thoughts to themselves. Usually.

  “Tis far to our interest to end these wars.” The voice rose shrilly from Rick’s left. Morron, father of the King’s Companion and Eqeta of the south-central region of Drantos. “Our trade is ruined by this war,” Morron said. “Each side takes its tolls, and all profit is lost to finance their wars. The sooner the issue is settled, the better for Drantos.”

  “Hah!” Drumold shouted. “So we have the truth of it. Tamaerthon is to be sold for the benefit of Drantos.”

  “Enough!” Rick shouted. He pounded the table again. “Enough, I say!” His hand went to his pistol. The babble ceased. Once, weeks before, Rick had fired a round into the ceiling as a means of shutting off debate. “Drumold, my old friend, you wrong me.”

  The old chieftan looked hurt, then thoughtful. “Aye,” he said reluctantly. “I spoke in haste. Yet I cannot retract this much: it is not in our interest that the Romans make peace among themselves.”

  “Do not be so certain. True, while Roman fights Roman they cannot attack us—but they cannot defend themselves, either. Of the eleven legions in Rome before the civil war began, scarcely six remain in condition to fight.”

  “Och, and who will invade Rome?” This came from Dughuilas, Chief of Clan Calder. “Unless we do, divided as they are...”

  “The High Rexja, for one,” Tylara said.

  Dughuilas and Drumold stared at her. Women did not speak at Council in Tamaerthon.

  “He will want to avenge his son Sarakos,” Tylara continued. “If we fight the Romans, the Five Kingdoms will be in Drantos within five ten-days. If we do not—will not Rexja Tons eye the Roman lands with greed? He has bheromen and knights, even sons of Wanaxxae who hoped for lands in Drantos. How shall they be rewarded, now that the Five hold no sway here?”

  “Such a one as Sarakos deserves no revenge,” Drumold muttered. Baiquhain, his oldest son, pounded the table in agreement.

  “Do you think you know that better than I?” Tylara demanded.

  The room fell silent. Everyone had heard that Tylara had been tortured—some even whispered raped—by Sarakos, but no one expected her to mention it.

  Rick took advantage of the silence. “We cannot fight Rome, for if we march east then Tons will lead the armies of the Five Kingdoms into Drantos.”

  “Then strike the Five,” someone said. “Now, before they prepare.”

  “Leaving a divided Rome behind us?” Rick asked. “When we can’t be certain of the friendship of either faction?”

  “We have aided Marselius,” Tylara said. “He sends us gifts.”

  “Aye. We sent him aid after we bested him in battle,” Drumold said. “He is a proud man and his legionaries are prouder. They will not forget how the clans stood against them—and won.”

  “Another good reason for alliance,” Rick said. “And how sure are you that Flaminius will not win while we flounder about in the north? It is certain enough that Flaminius bears nought but malice toward Tamaerthon. Let Flaminius win, and we will be as grain between the upper and nether millstones.”

  And about now, Rick thought, is when someone’s going to think of the master stroke of dissolving the alliance and letting Tamaerthon float off on its own. There, Dragomer is about to speak—“This is madness.” The voice thundered from immediately to Rick’s left. Yanulf, Archpriest of Yatar, stood defiantly, his arms thrown out wide. “The Time approaches. And in the Time of Burning, then shall the seas smoke and the lands melt as wax. The waters of ocean shall lap the mountains. Woe to those who have not prepared. Woe to the unbelievers.

  “And how have we prepared?” he demanded. “The starmen have come, exactly as prophecy foretold; they themselves tell us of The Time. We bicker among ourselves and make talk of petty wars, when the ice caves are empty of stores. I say it is time we fill the caves with grain and meat against The Time, and cease this talk of ‘interests.’ There are no interests more important than preparation for The Time.”

  “Well said,” someone shouted. The guildsmen stamped their feet in approval.

  “Well said indeed,” Rick agreed. “And another thing is certain: as the Demon Star comes closer, the lands to the south will be hurt first. Their people will stream north looking for places of refuge. That has already begun. The city-states of the south can scarce defend themselves; they will not seek to halt these migrations.”

  “We can hold the borders to the south,” Dughuilas said.

  “Perhaps,” Rick agreed. “But what of the southeast? What of the river valleys there?”

  “Roman land,” Drumold muttered. “Under Roman truce from time out of mind—”

  “Roman until city-state mercenaries take it,” Tylara said. “Aye, take it and open the roads for those coming from the south. They will want soon enough to have the wanderers leave their lands.”

  There was silence again while the council members studied the great map Rick had caused to be drawn on one wall of the chamber. The Drantos contingent saw it first. The river valley with its roads pointed like a dagger at the heart of Drantos-but it equally threatened the western border of Tamaerthon.

  “It could be,” Dragomer said. “The cities have produced good soldiers.”

  “Mercenaries,” Dughuilas said. His voice was filled with scorn. “No match for the chivalry of Tamaerthon.”

  “They have been a match for better cavalry than yours,” Dragomer said.

  Not the wisest thing he could have said, Rick thought. Dughuilas was chief of a large clan, and led a powerful faction of the Tamaerthan upper classes; and Dragomer was one of the Drantos lords who’d invited city-states mercenaries into Drantos in their revolt against young Ganton’s father.

  “I remind you of the King’s Peace,” Camithon said. “Answer gently, Eqeta Dragomer.”

  “I need not answer at all,” Dragomer said. “Were the cities to find one leader—”

  “They have not done so in memory.” A new voice. Corgarff, a subchief. “Nor do I fear they will do now. Not so much as to send my sons to die in a Roman fight, to save lands for Rome. Unless—” He paused for a long moment, until he had everyone’s attention. “Unless this Star Lord Gengrich, who leads the star-men lords in the south may yet come to lead all the cities? Perhaps the Lord Rick can tell us more of this man who once followed him.”

  I’ll have his blood, Rick thought. I’ll— “Careful,” Tylara said. She kept her voice low. “He is Dughuilas’s man, and Dughuilas has good reason to wish you ill.”

  “That is not well said.” Camithon was very much Lord Protector when he spoke. “The Lord Parsons rebelled against the Lord Rick. The Lord Gengrich deserted the cause of the Lord Parsons, and by both our laws and the laws of the starmen remains in rebellion. How is the Lord Rick guilty of blood shed by rebels against his rule?”

  But I am, Rick thought. I brought them here, and I let them get away from me. And now they’re like wolves among sheep.

  “They are rebels, but the Lord Rick has done little to capture them,” Corgarff said. He didn’t sound comfortable.

  He’s only following orders, Rick thought. Dughuilas’s orders. Fairly crude way to embarrass me.

  “He has done more than you,” Yanulf said. “And by Yatar’s blessing, the Lord Rick prevailed against the Lord Parsons.” He glanced at Sigrim. “And the next day Vothan One-eye was pleased to smile upon our armies.

  “But enough of this. Our talk does nothing. My lords, the Demon Star rises even as we speak! The ice forms thick in the caves. Yatar sends us the means of life, but we must grasp them. We must make sacrifice. We must.”

  “Indeed,” Rick said.

  “The stories of previous Times are clear,” Yanulf continued. “Those whose castles stand on bare rock will learn their folly, and seek the caves of Yatar. There will be wars enough then.

  “And then shall the gods come from the skies to trade; and from that trade shall come good and evil. And fire shall fall from the skies, and men shall smoke and burn as faggots, and their sores shall not heal. The only safety is the caves of Yatar and his Preserver.”

  “How can we grow the grains we need while our young men stand in arms?” Camithon demanded.

  “Let the Star Lords protect us,” shouted a guildsman. “They have power. Let them use it.”

  “Aye, we hold great power,” Rick said. “Enough to turn the tide of battle, once, twice, several times.

  But I think not enough for the troubles that come.”

  There was a long pause, as everyone considered what Rick had said. “If the starmen cannot defend us, and we cannot defend ourselves—” “March north.” “No, march east.” “Plant crops and trust to Yatar...” The babble rose in pitch.

  “Your advice, Lord Rick?” Ganton spoke carefully and clearly, his boyish voice penetrating the noise. The room fell silent. “We would welcome your advice.”

  “Majesty. I would send an embassy to Marselius. A strong Rome has ever been important for the safety of Drantos. It is doubly important now. The Roman civil war must end, and Marselius owes us much already; while Flaminius owes us nought but hate.

  “To see that Tamaerthon does not suffer from this, I say send Mac Clallan Muir himself as ambassador. Assisted by the Eqeta Morron and the Lady Gwen, and such others as I and the Lord Camithon shall agree to.”

  Camithon looked thoughtful, then turned to Drumold. “My lord. Will you seek truce between the Romans, and alliance?”

  Drumold looked thoughtful. “Alliance with Rome. ‘Tis a strange thought. Strange indeed. And yet—I will not oppose it. Aye. The Lord Rick is convincing. There is danger in a strong Rome, but there is more in a divided Rome during these times.”

  There were murmurs of approval.

  It doesn’t look like anyone saw it was a setup, Rick thought. Which is just as well. Machine politics, medieval style...

  “Then let it be done,” Camithon said.

  “Go with the blessings of Yatar Skyfather,” Yanuif said. “Go swiftly, before The Time comes on us and we all perish.”

 

 

4

 

 

“How is your head?”

  “Better,” Rick said. “I wasn’t sure you were speaking to me.”

  “You are my husband. How can I not speak to you?”

  “Come off it,” Rick said wearily. “What’s wrong, anyway?”

  “Nothing is wrong.”

  Sure. I can believe as much of that as I want. “I love you—”

  “And I you.”

  “Do you?”

  “Certainly.” She seemed about to say something else, but instead she turned away. “The meeting begins soon, and I must see to Isobel. I will be there when you begin.”

  “Look, Gwen means nothing to me! But I have to see her. She’s the only one who might know what the

  Shalnuksis are going to do. And she asked to see me alone. Don’t you understand? We need her. The whole country needs her.”

  “Certainly I understand,” Tylara said. “You told her that her child would have the stars.”

  “It was a way of speaking,” Rick said. “Our children will have no less opportunity.”

  Her smile was wintry.

  “For the stars, or here on Tran,” Rick insisted. “You need have no jealousy of Gwen Tremaine!”

  “I have none.”

  “You damned well don’t act that way! And now you’re angry, and I’m sorry.”

  “Have I reason to be angry?”

  “Tylara, please. I don’t need this,” Rick said. “And I must speak to Gwen.”

  “I understand perfectly.” She strode from the room.

  Women, Rick thought. Is she determined to drive me away from her?

 

He brooded all the way down the stone corridors to the guest suite. He paused at the door, then knocked.

  “Enter.”

  Gwen Tremaine was standing at the window. Yellow light streamed through light brown hair, showed up green eyes. She was very short; “five-foot-two,” the song said, and that was about right. She wore a spectacular blue gown, cut in a style more Parisian than anything fashionable on Tran. It was made of some kind of blue silk that shone in the evening sunlight. She continued to stare out into the gathering dusk as Rick came in.

  “A penny for your thoughts,” he said in English.

  She laughed. “There aren’t any pennies here. But I’ll tell you anyway. I was trying to decide which made me sadder, that Earth is out there somewhere, or that my baby’s father is there—”

  “You do miss him, then?”

  She shook her head slowly. “Rick, I don’t know. Sometimes I want him so bad I could die. And sometimes I just want to kill him.” She turned away from the window. “I was in love with him, you know. I could say I was kidnapped, but I wasn’t, I got on that damned flying saucer of my own free will because the man I loved asked me to.”

  “And left you here when you got pregnant.”

  “Yes.” She went over to the small table and sat down in one of the wooden chairs. “Wine? Yes, let’s both have some.”

  “The real question is did Les mean it when he said he’d come back?”

  “Yes. That’s the real question.” She drank the full glass of wine and poured another. “He said he’d come back—but Rick, have you ever thought that maybe he intended all along to dump me here? That he never did tell me the truth about anything? Sure, I got pregnant and wouldn’t let his damn machine do an abortion, but maybe that was just a good excuse to get rid of me. Maybe he was tired of me anyway.”

  “You didn’t think that last time we talked.” Rick took the chair across from her and lifted his own wine glass. “Cheers.”

  “Cheers. No. Last time we talked I was sure he loved me. Next time maybe I will be, too. But just now—just now I’m not sure.”

  “Okay. But he did give you the transceiver. And he told you about the rebellion among the human troops of the Confederation—”

  “It’s not a rebellion,” Gwen said. “More a—a dissent. And—Rick, have you told anyone about this? Anyone at all?”

  “No.”

  “Not even Tylara?”

  “Not even Tylara. I won’t tell any locals. Or any of the troops, either. Not unless I have to—if you and I are both killed, someone here has to know. Warner, maybe.”

  “Yes, I’ve thought of that too. But don’t tell him yet.”

  “I won’t. Next subject. You know more than me about what the Shalnuksis will do. Had any more thoughts?”

  “Some. Over there—that wooden chest. It has maps, areas I think might be best for raising surinomaz. One good area would be along the western border of the Roman Empire.”

  “Which we don’t own. Oh—have you heard about the Council this morning? I’d like you to be on the delegation to Rome.”

  She nodded. “Another journey. More time away from my son.”

  “Take him with you—”

  “Into a civil war? Don’t be silly. But you’re right, I have to go. I can inspect the potential cropland on the way. Meanwhile, we want to begin growing madweed on our side of the border. We won’t get a full crop this year, but we ought to start experimental plots now. Get some experience with the stuff. It’s tricky, Rick. The ecology is all bound up with some little mammals that are something like rats. They swarm into the fields and die, and when they rot they fertilize the plants. They also stink to the throne of God.”

  “Not to mention necrotic products.”

  She nodded agreement. “I’d think those fields get pretty unhealthy. Which is one reason the peasants don’t want to grow madweed. You’ve got your work cut out to make them do it.”

  “Convicts. Criminals—”

  “I suppose. And when you’re done with them, when the madweed fields have killed most of them, the Shalnuksis will finish the job for you.”

  “When?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Certainly they’ll want to trade with us as long as we have surinomaz, but after that—you have as much evidence as I do. I think they’ll try to find out which is our center of culture, and destroy it.”

  Rick nodded thoughtfully. Certainly there was plenty of evidence. Every six hundred years, when surinomaz grew well under the influence of the Demon Star, the Shalnuksis came to Tran with a fresh crop of Earth mercenaries. Roman legionaries, Celtish warriors, Franks. And every time, when the aliens had got all they wanted, they tried to exterminate their agents. The legends told over and over of skyfire, and everyone knew where there were fields of glass...

  “So we’ll want to be sure we don’t build anything modern looking.”

  “That may not be good enough. Rick, there were Tran languages in the computer on Les’s ship. They talk to locals. They’ll ask questions, and 1 think our University will be the first target.”

  “I thought of that too,” Rick agreed. “Which is why I’m not putting much into brick and mortar. By the time your boyfriend starts dropping atom bombs on us, all the important people will be long gone to the caves. Meanwhile the travelling teams go teaching science to every villager in Drantos. And-Gwen, this is all crazy! A galactic civil war over Earth—”

  “I told you, it’s not a civil war. Just a disagreement among the leaders of the Confederate Council,” Gwen said. “And I think it’s crazy too, but—” She pointed out the window.

  “Yeah.” Crazy or not, they are here, on Tran. It wasn’t Earth. Given that one undoubted fact, what couldn’t they believe? “Look, your friend Les is the best chance we’ll ever have for getting off of this planet. And he told you he’d come for you—”

  “If he could. Yes.”

  “And you believe him.”

  “I remember I did when he told me,” she said. “I don’t know about now. What difference does it make? He is our only chance.”

  “And what about the rest of us?”

  “Rick, I don’t know.”

  “Yeah.” But it wasn’t likely that Les would give a damn about the mercenaries. He might care for Gwen and their child. That might even be likely. But there was no reason at all for him to worry about a bunch of mercs. “Gwen, why did you want to see me alone?”

  “Your wife doesn’t like me. I don’t much care for her, either.”

  “She’s jealous. She thinks I’m your baby’s father. Or that I could have been, anyway. Your wanting to see me alone didn’t help the situation.”

  “It didn’t hurt it, either.”

  “No, I expect you’re right. Not much would.”

  “And I just wanted the chance to speak English and talk without having to worry about what I say. Rick, it gets pretty bad up there in Tamaerthon. Always on guard so that I don’t give away something.”

  “And you’re not on guard with me. You’re not keeping any more secrets?”

  “No, of course not.”

  You sure as hell did, Rick thought. For damned near too long. So how can I trust you now? “So. How are things at the University? Any trouble?”

  “No. And of course I have the pistol you gave me—”

  Another point of contention with Tylara. She thought she should have had Andre Parson’s .45 Colt. But Tylara had plenty of experience protecting herself on Tran, and Gwen had none. “Do you like my dress?” she asked. “Yes. I was just admiring it.”

  “It’s called garta cloth. Larry Warner got it. Rick, it’s a very close weave.”

  “So?”

  “So we could make a hot-air balloon from it.”

  “You’re kidding. Hot damn, of course! Observation balloons! They used them in the Civil War, and the Franco-Prussian War, and—can you really sew the seams tight enough?”

  “Yes. We’ve tested a small model, and Larry made glue from horses’ hooves. It will really work. The only problem is the cloth. It comes from the south. We don’t have enough, because the trade routes are in a mess. It’s very expensive-”

  “Sure looks it. Warner got that lot?”

  She nodded.

  “And gave some to you?”

  “He had the dress made for me,” Gwen said.

  “Why?”

  “None of your business.”

  “The devil it’s not,” Rick said.

  “Captain Galloway, I have not asked you to be my protector. I don’t ask now.”

  “Sure, Gwen. I thought Caradoc was sweet on you.”

  “He likes me.”

  “Seems to me you encouraged him, back when you were pregnant.”

  “I might have-”

  “And now Warner. Gwen, I need both of them. You play them off against each other, and you’ll get one killed sure as hell!”

  “No, that won’t happen.”

  And there’s not a lot I can do anyway. Keep them apart? Nonsense. Warner and Gwen are needed at the University, and Caradoc goes there to see her whenever he gets the chance, and how do I stop him?

  “There’s more news,” she said.

  “All right. What?”

  “I know of a village where they make drugs out of surinomaz.”

  “Somebody else mentioned that. Warner?”

  “Probably. Anyway, there is such a place. One of the travelling medicine-show teams came in with the news.”

  “Which one?”

  “Doesn’t matter. The merc with the outfit was Beazely, but it was an acolyte, Salanos, who had wits enough to come tell me.”

  “That could be important. If there’s some local use for the stuff it might be easier to get people to grow it.”

  “Yes. I’ll check that out, shall I?”

  “Please. And the balloon; that’s a great idea. It could be decisive in the Roman civil war. Observation of the enemy, command and control of our own forces, artillery spotting—Gwen, it could really be the winning factor.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You don’t look too happy.”

  “Should I be? More battles—”

  “They’ll be fought anyway,” Rick said. “And people will starve no matter what we do, too. But at least we can save some of them, this time, and we can get civilization spread so far across this planet that the Shalnuksis and their goddam skyfire can’t root it out.”

  “We can try,” Gwen said.

 

 

5

 

 

Tylara stared at the roughly whitewashed door of the farmhouse. The one-eyed image of Vothan stared back. She waited until she heard a faint click and saw movement behind the one eye.

  “Who seeks entry to the House of the Wolf?” a voice demanded.

  “Tylara do Tamaerthon, Eqetassa of Chelm.”

  “Enter, lady,” said a rough voice, followed by the sound of a lock turning.

  Tylara stepped into the house, stamped the mud off her riding boots, then glared at the man who’d let her in. “What are your orders about tending the door, Bartolf?”

  The man turned the color of a winter sunset. He swallowed. “To recognize all who come, and let them enter with hands open and empty.”

  “Did you ask me to open my hands?”

  “No, but—”

  “But nothing. I might have been a spy disguised as the Lady Tylara. If I had been—” Her right hand darted into the full left sleeve of her riding tunic. Then she raised it. As the sleeve fell back, it exposed her husband’s Gerber Mark II combat knife. She’d borrowed it for just this sort of demonstration.

  “You’d have been dead from that mistake, Bartolf.”

  “Perhaps, Lady Tylara,” he said. “But an enemy in your place wouldn’t have lived enough longer to do hurt or learn much.” He raised his voice. “Bennok! The berries are ripe.”

  The tapestry on the opposite wall of the antechamber rippled, then rose as a dark-haired, pimple-faced youth slipped through a waist-high opening it had concealed. He held a small crossbow, the sort noblewomen used for shooting birds and rabbits. Not enough, thought Tylara, then saw that the thin point of the quarrel was barbed and glistening with something green and sticky.

  “Poison?” she asked. “And the point has been made small enough to enter ringmail.”

  Bartolf nodded. “That was Monira’s idea. The rest was all his.” He reached down to tousle the boy’s hair.

  The boy carefully sidestepped out of reach.

  “That was a very good idea, Bennok,” said Tylara. “Are there others who keep watch?”

  “Oh yes, lady. With the poison on the quarrel, any of us can do the work. So we all take turns.”

  “Very good.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a silver piece. “This is for your good work.”

  Bennok didn’t reach for the silver. “Will there be one for all the others, lady? I can’t take it unless there is.”

  Tylara tried not to sound as confused as she felt. “I think there will be silver for all of you.”

  “Oh thank you, lady. Now maybe we can buy those longbows ourselves if Bartolf goes on saying he won’t give them to us.” He darted back under the tapestry and vanished.

  Bartolf was red-faced again. “I’m sorry, Lady Tylara. I should have told you. They’ve all eleven of them sworn an oath to be as brothers and sisters and have all their wealth in common. The only things they’ll call their own are weapons and clothing.”

  “And Monira was the leader in this, I’ll wager?” said Tylara, smiling to show that she wasn’t offended.

  Bartolf returned her smile uncertainly. “She spoke for them all when they told us. I don’t know if that was her idea, though.”

  “And you don’t think you ever will?”

  “No. They are good at keeping even the secrets we don’t want them to keep.”

  Someday that might make trouble. Now it proved to Tylara that her idea was succeeding beyond anything she’d expected.

  Thoughts sometimes took on a life of their own. This one was born in bitter sleeplessness during the early days of pregnancy. She lay awake, unable to sleep, unable to stop torturing herself with restless thoughts. She was certain that Rick had not fathered Gwen’s child, but her mind would not let go of the matter. Let her think of stars and star weapons, and it would end with that question. That night it began simply enough, when Rick musingly told her that the star-folk would come and it might be useful to capture one of their ships.

  Tylara could scarcely conceive of a starship. She never expected to see one. Yet certainly something had brought Rick and the others to Tran. All the priesthoods agreed that mankind had not been created here. If humanity came from another world, then there must be ships to travel between the worlds.

  And Rick wanted one. He wanted one badly.

  If he had a ship, would he leave her?

  Or would he first teach everyone on Tran the secrets of star weapons and starships, as he said he would do? It scarcely mattered. There was no way to capture a starship. Rick had laughed at his own idea. His star weapons would be useless.

  And Tylara lay pondering stars and starships and weapons and children—There were no dangerous weapons. Only dangerous men—and women, and children. If the starmen were all like Rick, reluctant to kill, sentimental, fastidious to the point of squeamishness...

  How would you take a ship of the sky-folk? You would certainly need to surprise them, so they would not be able to use their fire weapons.

  But suppose, suppose half a dozen children could get aboard such a ship. Not ordinary children. Children well trained, dedicated, fanatic followers devoted to service... Then at a signal they pulled out knives and fell on the crew. That would be surprise indeed. No one thinks that an eight-year-old girl can be dangerous, unless she is a trained warrior, and maybe not even then. The Shalnuksis, according to both Rick and Gwen, would not be sending trained warriors. They would send merchants, easily surprised and once surprised easily killed.

  But you would need to have the children trained and ready long before the sky-folk came. And they would have to be kept a secret from everyone until then. There were those on Tran who might warn the sky-folk if they could. Lady Gwen could be one of those. And Rick surely would not approve of this. Why should he know?

  So began the Houses of the Children of Vothan, for boys and girls up to the age of ten who’d been orphaned in the wars. There were plenty of those, enough to fill many more than the seven Houses everyone knew about.

  In those seven Houses orphans were fed, clothed, sheltered, and taught trades. Some learned to be midwives, seamstresses, carpenters, shepherds, smiths. Some learned new skills, such as wire-making or distilling. In one house the boys were destined to become acolytes of Yatar, the girls to serve the hearth goddess Hestia. There was a house near Rick’s precious University.

  And there was an eighth House. Six boys and five girls, from six to nine, picked for quick wits, strong muscles, and keen eyes and ears, brought here to learn one thing and one thing only—how to kill. Some of them had good reasons to learn, others just had talent. All had been doing well at their lessons, the last time she visited them, six ten-days before her confinement.

  Bartolf led her through the door from the antechamber into the main room of the house. As she stepped into the room she heard a thump, a squeal like a piglet’s, and the rasp of a knife blade.

  “Aiiii, lass!” shouted a wheezing male voice. “Have ye learned nothing about holding a knife? That one—it’ud stick between his ribs, even the rope round his neck canna save ye then! Fast in, faster out, that’s the way it must be.”

  Tylara stepped out into the room. In one corner a man-sized dummy lay on the floor. One boy lay under its head and upper body, gripping a rope drawn tightly around its neck. On top of it lay the girl Monira, her knife thrust up to the hilt in its chest. As Tylara approached, Monira sprang up, bowed quickly, then helped her companion crawl out from under the dummy.

  “Are you hurt, Haddo?”

  “No, Monira. Only my breath knocked out.” He also bowed to Tylara, then walked off with Monira as if both Tylara and their teachers had become invisible.

  “My regrets, lady,” said the teacher with a shrug. “Sometimes she gets taken so that she forgets everything. Mostly, though, she’s a joy to watch. Ah, if I’d had a girl like her when I—” He broke off abruptly as he remembered to whom he was talking.

  The teacher’s name was Chai, and he had reason to be cautious in talking about his past. He was a former thief who’d taken advantage of the wars to practice his skills, and in due time came before the Eqetassa’s justice. Unlike most common thieves, he had real skills. He could even read and write. And he’d once been a priest of Yatar. A spoiled priest, but admitted to the mysteries...

  That was the morning that Tylara decided to establish the Houses; and Chai, his name and appearance changed, became one of the Masters...

  Tylara watched Monira and Haddo sit down cross-legged in a corner and wipe each other’s faces with damp clothes. Monira was beginning to have a woman’s body, but she would never be beautiful even with her thick fair hair. A troop of Sarakos’s cavalry had taken care of that. At least nothing showed when she was dressed, except her broken nose and the scars on her chin and one ear.

  Tylara had been through a similar ordeal, at Sarakos’s own hands, and she also would bear scars both inside and out for the rest of her life. Compared with what Monira had survived, though, Tylara knew her own experience was a child’s game. No great wonder that Monira sometimes saw one of those men instead of the training dummy.

  In another corner of the room stood the third teacher, Rathiemay, wearing a knight’s armor. He was showing three of the Children how to attack an armored man.

  “—get him to bow his head, if he’s wearing a helmet like this. That will leave a patch exposed at the back of the neck. Yes, that’s it,” he added, as one of the Children prodded it with a blunted dagger. “A good hard thrust right there. If he’s not dead at once he’s easy to finish off.” He saw Tylara and straightened up. “Good day, my lady.”

  “Good day, Lord Rathiemay. How are they doing?”

  “No one could wish for better pupils, my lady. They seem to have been born with steel in their hands.” His face was bright with his smile, reminding Tylara oddly of her husband’s expression when he spoke of the University or some other great scheme for bringing hope and life to Tran. She remembered how he’d looked the first time she came, sour and grumbling over being a knight sent to teach commoner children how to strike down his brothers in arms. To be sure, he was grateful that the Eqetassa had given him this chance to restore his fortunes, but still... Now he looked almost like a father teaching the children of his own body the family trade.

  “Where are the other Children?”

  “Out in the woods, learning tree-climbing,” said Chai.

  “Without a teacher?”

  “Na, na, lady. They’re learning from Alanis. His father was a woodsman, there’s no sort of tree he can’t climb. It’s a mizzling gray sort of day, so no one’s likely to be seeing them.”

  Tylara pulled eleven silver coins out of her purse and handed them to Bartolf. “For the Children. I hear they want some new bows.”

  “Aye, but they’ve also spoken about some sand-fish buskins for the tree-climbing. We’ll have to let them decide.”

  “You let them choose what they’ll buy?”

  “Oh, not everything, lady. Only the things likely to be life or death for them. Why not? Does a carpenter let a butcher choose his mallets for him?”

  Tylara thanked the man, drew the hood of her cloak over her head, and was outside in the rain without remembering quite how she got there. What had she done? The Children of Vothan were no weapon to lie quietly in a scabbard until she choose to draw it. They were a sword with a life and a will of its own, which might choose its own moment to be drawn and drink blood.

  Whose?

  A dangerous experiment. Was it best ended now, while she had control? Or—

  Or might there be uses for this weapon? Used well, used now, before the sky-folk came.

  Tylara grew more hopeful as she walked back to her horse. By the time she was in the saddle and returning to where she’d left her escort, she knew the Children of Vothan would not be a weapon only for a single battle. The sky-folk were not the only enemies to her and her house.

 

 

PART TWO

 

 

If This Be Treason...

 

 

6

 

 

Corgarff knew that he was out of favor with Dughuilas when his clan chief did not invite him to sit or offer him a drink. He stood in front of the table facing Dughuilas and another man he didn’t know, until he felt like a small boy waiting to be whipped by his father. The only light in the cellar came from two candles on the table, throwing strange twisted shadows on the cobweb-shrouded brick of the walls.

  “That was not well done, what you said at the Grand Council,” said Dughuilas.

  “I thought it the best thing to say at the time. And indeed, is it not possible that the Lord of Chelm thinks too much of his countrymen still?”

  “Whether he does or not is no concern of yours,” said Dughuilas. “You thought poorly, and spoke worse. If you wish to sit longer on the Council with me, you will need to think better or speak less.”

  “I will do neither unless I know why you are so tender toward the Lord Rick so suddenly,” said Corgarff. “Was it not he who spoke harshly to you and did all but smite you with the open hand the day we fought the Romans? Was it not he who made fighting men out of plowboys and swineherds? Is it not he—?”

  “He has done all this and more,” said the second man. He wore a hooded cloak, and kept the hood drawn over his head so that his face stayed shadowed.

  But his accent was not that of the Tamaerthan upper classes. Nor yet that of the Drantos nobility. Who, then? Corgarff thought it would be dangerous to ask—and probably death to know.

  “And speak more softly,” the man continued. “We cannot trust the tavern keeper if he thinks he has anything worth selling.” Dughuilas put a hand on his dagger but the other shook his head. “In time, perhaps, but not now on the mere chance that he might have heard something useful. If we kill too many rats, the wolves will escape.”

  “If the Lord Rick is a wolf, what harm to oppose him in Council?” Corgarff demanded. “And he will send our sons to die in Roman wars for Roman causes. Rome, whose slavemasters have tormented us these centuries—”

  Dughuilas held up his hands to gesture for silence. “Spare me. I can make the speech better than you.,’

  “The Lord Rick will be strong as long as he and the Lady Tylara keep their wits,” said the second man. “We can do nothing to change this. Indeed, we should not. Your friend who thinks so well of the Lady Tylara would not have any injury done to her or her blood. Without your friend, much we hope can not be done.”

  “You should not have said that,” said Dughuilas sourly. “You have given this rattle-jaw knowledge I had not intended he should have.”

  “If you have plans for Corgarff which you are not telling me, expect little from me,” said the second man. His voice was so even it was impossible to tell if he was angry or not. “I think you need my friendship as much as we both need-our friend’s.”

  Who could he be, that he could speak to the chieftain in that manner? But if he was not angry, Corgarff was. He almost forgot to lower his voice. “Lord Dughuilas. I have perhaps spoken unwisely. Yet you speak as though I were a traitor. Were you not my sworn chief, I would have your blood for this.”

  “I did not wish to call you traitor, for indeed you are no such,” said Dughuilas smoothly. “Forgive me those words, and I will forgive you for yours.”

  Corgarff took his hand from the knife hilt.

  “Sit. Sit and join us.” Dughuilas poured wine and lifted his own glass in salute. “Drink, clansman.”

  “Aye. Thank you, my chieftain.” Two mysteries here. This man, this conspirator; and beyond him a mysterious ally. Hah! thought Corgarff. That one I can guess. Probably the Lady Tylara’s brother, Balquhain. A hothead, the darling of old Drumold’s age, bound to become Mac Clallan Muir in time... Certainly no other noble of Tamaerthon was as likely to wish to uphold the old rights of the warriors without injuring the Lady Tylara.

  “The Lord Rick has brought victories,” Dughuilas’s companion said. “Victory over Rome—”

  “A mockery,” Dughuilas said. “What matters victory at the price of all we hold dear? Lord Rick makes knights of crofters and peasants. They obey their chiefs not at all.”

  “It will become worse,” the second man said. “It is this ‘University’ that spawns your troubles. It is from there that these dangerous ideas come. This place is important to Lord Rick. Harm that, and he will know of the anger of the knights.”

  “If we wish to injure the University, I can give some aid,” said Corgarff. “A smith’s boy from my land works there. I have heard that his father has not long to live, and he fears his mother and sister will want. Only a little gold could buy him, I think.”

  “Is he fit for any work we might give him?”

  “As fit as anyone of such blood can be.”

  “The Lord Rick would not have said that,” said the second man.

  “Hang the Lord Rick!” snarled Dughuilas.

  “As Yatar wills,” said the second man quietly. “But I think he is more likely to hang us, if we cannot use whatever tools come our way.”

  Dughuilas nodded sourly. “Och, aye. But a man of the old blood must keep watch on this peasant lad. You, Corgarff.”

  “Aye, Chieftain.” He paused a moment. “Perhaps there is a way. One hears that the University prepares a new machine. They say it will fly through the air! That men may fly as gulls!”

  “Och!” Dughuilas stared in wonder. “Can this be true? Then woe to our enemies, when warriors can fly—”

  “And when they do, your order is finished. What need of knights then?” Dughuilas’s companion asked.

  “Och. Aye, it is so,” Dughuilas said. “The Lord Rick will raise up peasants, while the men of blood fall. This must not be.”

  Corgarff nodded grimly. “I had not thought—but it is true enough. Already the University is guarded by the sons of crofters. Even freedmen. Freedmen with arms! But hear. In the past, when a new machine is prepared, the University is open to all who wish to come and watch. The Lord Rick does not seem to care who learns his secrets.”

  “He is a fool,” said Dughuilas.

  “One wonders,” said the second man. “Perhaps he plays a game too deep for our understanding. Surely we would be fools if we did not reckon on that.”

  “Fools we are not,” Dughuilas said. “And our cause is just. Lord Rick would destroy all we ever lived for. It is our right to oppose him. Let us destroy this University, and all its arts, forever and aye. Swear it!”

  The three stood. “We swear,” they said in unison. Then they raised their glasses, drained them, and dashed them to the floor.

 

 

The University was located in a town at the northwestern border of Tamaerthon. The place had been noted for its medicinal springs, and had long boasted a small temple of Yatar where acolytes came for training; a natural place for a center of learning, but open and vulnerable.

  Rick had the town’s defenses repaired, and now a proper city wall was under construction. There were also a mortar and a light machine gun. It wasn’t likely that the University would fall to an enemy.

  Larry Warner locked the armory door and returned the salutes of the archers who stood outside it. He was going to his quarters when he heard a call for the proctor on duty. Warner immediately changed his plans and headed for the gate area. He arrived to see a small caravan ride up.

  “Who comes?” a local guardsman called.

  “Sergeant Major Elliot.”

  Holy shit, that’s who it was all right. With a pretty big crew, too. Damn, Warner thought. With Gwen Tremaine gone off on embassy duty, Warner had been senior man present. He rather liked being in charge. Now here was Elliot. Crap.

  “Let Sergeant Major in,” Warner commanded. Maybe I ought to keep him out—that’s too silly to think about. What do I do, set up as some kind of king here? Stupid. “And ask him to join me in my quarters after he has been shown to the Visiting Officers’ Quarters.”

 

“Ho, Sarge, what brings you here?”

  “Cap’n sent me down south,” Elliot said. “Buyin’ some of that garta cloth you like. Brought you a whole mess of it.”

  “Hey. That’s all right.” Rick Galloway had been pleased with the balloon idea when Warner described it back at Castle Edron. The problem had been the cloth, which could only come from the south, and Warner had been afraid he would be sent there to buy some. Instead, Rick sent Warner and the two new troopers back to the University, where for two ten-days Warner had enjoyed being in charge. “Have to get to work on the balloon, then.”

  Elliot nodded in agreement. “I brought orders on that. Cap’n wants a test model in a ten-day.”

  “Can’t do it.”

  “You can try!”

  “Sarge, I’ll do my goddam best, but nobody is going to sew up that thing in a ten-day! You got any idea how big that sucker is?”

  “No—”

  “It’s big. Take that from me. Uh—Sarge, why are you here?”

  “Captain’s orders. I’m the new Provost for the University.”

  “You?”

  “Yeah. Show you the written orders tomorrow.”

  “Shit. And where do I fit in?”

  “Hell, Professor, I treat you like a civilian. You’re my boss—so long as it’s not a military situation. Comes a military situation, you’re back in uniform. Like a weekend warrior. It’s all in the orders.”

  “Oh.” That’s not bad. Not bad at all. Makes good sense. Elliot was Parsons’s man. Killed a lot of Drantos soldiers while he was working for Parsons. Must be a ton of nobles who’d like to even the score for their relatives. Blood-feuds and all that. Makes sense to get Sergeant Major Elliot out of Drantos, and God knows the University’s important enough.

  “I’m also supposed to help you with the bookkeeping,” Elliot said. “For the travellin’ medicine shows.” He frowned heavily. “Do those things do any good, Professor?”

  “Sure. Look, we send out a merc and a couple of local warriors and some junior priests of Yatar. They go out and make maps and get a resource survey. That’s worth it all alone—Sarge, the maps here are really something else! Most of ‘em have their own country bigger’n the Roman Empire, for chrissake!

  “But there’s more to it. They go to the towns and teach hygiene. Germ theory of disease. Antiseptic practices.”

  “Does it work?”

  “Yeah, sometimes,” Warner said. “And sometimes not, I guess. Sometimes we get the old ‘what was good enough for Granny’ routine—”

  “So you convert Granny,” Elliot said.

  “Right-o. Or we try to.” He drank another glass of wine. “Sarge, I had a thought. The Captain likes you around him. Is he going to base his Roman expedition out of here?”

  “He may have to.”

  “Crap.”

  “You don’t like that?”

  “Don’t like this place mixed up with war,” Warner said. “Yeah, I know how that sounds, coming from me, but it’s true.”

  “Funny, I agree with you,” Elliot said. “More to the point, I think the Captain does too. But what else has he got? Anyplace else is controlled by the local lords—Larry, why do the lords hate Captain Galloway so much?”

  “I would too,” Warner said. “Lord Rick comes in and makes his pikemen and archers more effective than the knights, pretty soon the troops are going to wonder what it is the heavy cavalrymen do that makes them so important. It’s a good question, too.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “Bad enough that Captain Galloway had better wear armor any time he’s got Tamaerthan lords around,” Warner said. “Bad enough that you and I ought to keep lookin’ over our shoulders, too.”

  “Yeah. All right, I’ll do just that. Hey, have you got a drink? It’s hot work, riding up these hill paths.”

  “Sure.” Warner clapped his hands and a girl about eighteen years old came in. “Sara. Cold beer, please. Thank you—”

  “She’s a looker.”

  “Want to borrow her?”

  “Hooker?”

  “Naw, slave,” Warner said. “Yeah, I know, the Captain doesn’t approve of slavery. I liberated her, Sarge, but she won’t leave. Where would she go? One day a freedman will marry her, I expect, but meanwhile she works here and she likes working for star-men—”

  “Well, Larry, I don’t have anybody to clean up for me—”

  “I’ll send her over to help until you get something permanent set up. One thing, be polite to her. I always am—ah. Thank you, Sara.”

  She set down two large tankards and curtsied. They drank. “Good beer,” Elliot said. “Soft duty up here.”

  “You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen me today,” Warner said. “Working on fuels for the balloon. Hot air’s all right, but I think I can figure a way to make hydrogen for the next one. If I can make a good sizing for the cloth to seal it so it’ll hold hydrogen.”

  “Hydrogen. What’s the matter, Professor, afraid you’ll run out of hot air after the first one?”

  “Ho-ho. Anyway, now that the cloth’s here I can really get to work. Have any trouble?”

  “I don’t ever have trouble, Professor.”

  “Yeah.” Actually, Warner thought, that must have been a hell of an expedition. Mercs, locals, Tamaerthan archers, pack animals for the trade goods, more pack animals for the fodder—taking a zoo like that over muddy roads and through the hills couldn’t have been much of a picnic.

  “Usual market for this stuff is Rome,” Elliot said. “So we got it at a good price.”

  “Where? Rustengo?”

  “Found a whole warehouse full about a hundred klicks north of there. With the roads to Rome closed off they were grateful for the chance to sell.”

  “Hmm. And the Romans really like the stuff—”

  “That’s what I hear.”

  “Maybe a good bargaining point for Miss Gwen. I think we’ll send a messenger tomorrow to tell her.”

  “All right by me. I got a few other items of interest.”

  “Good. Seriously, did you run into any trouble?”

  Elliot grinned. “Nothing I can’t handle, Professor. Some bandits in the hills outside Viys. About two hundred.”

  “That’s damned near an army, around here.”

  “We. unlimbered the H&K’s,” Elliot said. “No sweat.” He seemed pleased at the memory. “Didn’t have to use too many rounds, either. After that, nobody wanted to give us any gas. Word spread pretty fast.”

  “Yeah. No sign of Gengrich?”

  “No. He could have been trouble.”

  Larry Warner nodded. “I hear he’s set up as a pirate king. One of these days we may have to deal with him. More beer?”

  “Sure. And don’t forget to tell that girl 1 want to borrow her. You’re right about Gengrich, they’re scared of him down there. But they’re scared of everything. The whole south’s talking about the Roman situation. Half of ‘em want the Romans to keep on fighting each other. Long as that war goes, the Roman frontier posts aren’t manned, and the southerners have a place to send the refugees that keep streaming in.

  “Then there’s the others, who mutter about the lost trade, and how things are going to hell. And all the priests of Yatar are out soapboxin’ about The Time, and how they better store up food against the years of famine—”

  “They’re right there,” Warner said. “One reason for this University. We’re as much an agricultural research station as anything else. And there’s our travelling road shows—”

  “Right. Captain said I was to help you get those organized.” Elliot stretched elaborately. “Larry, things look pretty good, considerin’ where the Cubans had us.”

  “Sure,” Warner said.

  “Relax. Captain Galloway knows what he’s doing.”

  “I hope so,” Warner said. “Damn, I hope so.”

 

 

Rick put down the report from Sergeant Elliot and nodded in satisfaction. Tylara came and took it from the table. She puzzled over each word.

  “I’ll read it to you if you like,” Rick said.

  “I’ll ask you to do so. Later,” she said. She went on reading.

  “Your English is getting very good,” Rick said. “I’m proud of you.”

  “Thank you.” She went on poring over the parchment, her finger resting at each word. Finally she looked up. “You have promised mediation in the Roman Wars,” she said. “You had Elliot make that promise in our names.”

  “Yes.”

  “You did not consult me about this, yet the promise is as Eqeta of Chelm—”

  “Dammit, I don’t have to consult you! I am the Eqeta of Chelm!”

  “So much for your fine promises,” she said. “We rule as equals. But you are perhaps more equal than I.”

  “I am also Captain-General of Drantos, War Chief of Tamaerthon, and Colonel of Mercenaries,” Rick said. “Posts I had before I married you. Do you tell me everything you do?”

  “The important things. Must we quarrel?”

  “That’s what I was going to ask.”

  “Then let us not. I was going to say that I approve of your strategem in the south. It brought us the cloth at a lower price, and there is no way for them to know if you keep the promise. Soon no one on Tran will be teaching you anything about bargaining.”

  In spite of Tylara’s heart-stopping smile, Rick wasn’t entirely sure those words were a compliment. He frowned. “I intend to keep the promise and try to negotiate a peace, if we can’t give Marselius a victory.”

  She stared at him. “That is impossible. How can there be peace in Rome after three seasons of war?”

  “Not easily, I admit,” said Rick. “But if Marselius issues the proclamation I’m about to suggest, the chances will be better. He should announce that he will punish no man for any act done in obedience to a proclaimed Caesar. I’ve already proposed to the ambassador that Flaminius do the same. A mutual pardon for everything done during the war.” They did that during the Wars of the Roses, when the English Parliament formally legislated that no man could commit treason by obeying a crowned king. If they hadn’t, there wouldn’t have been a Yorkist or Lancastrian left.

  “Marselius might agree. He might even keep such an agreement. Not Flaminius. The man is a fool. Otherwise he wouldn’t have pushed Marselius into rebellion at all.”

  “Perhaps Flaminius wouldn’t agree, by himself. But can he go against all of his commanders? They’re losing soldiers, sons, estates. Some of them must be wiser than he is about what needs to be done to prepare for The Time. If they no longer need fear for their lives, who knows what advice they might give? I don’t.”

  “It is still a pardon for treason. Do we want anyone to make the lot of the rebel so much easier?”

  “There are different kinds of rebels, it seems to me. Marselius with his legions is not the same as a mountain bandit with a dozen ragged followers.”

  “Not in your eyes, at least. I hope that this does not mean that all starmen take their oaths as lightly as Colonel Parsons did.”

  Rick sighed. When she got this sharp-tongued, he could either change the subject or be sure of a fight. It wasn’t worth having a fight now. He would have to lead her gradually if at all toward his own position on how to treat rebels. There were going to be many of them, as The Time approached. The Time itself would kill enough people on Tran. If being generous with pardons could reduce the toll of life and property from the rebellions, wasn’t it at least worth trying?

  It wouldn’t be Tylara’s way, of course. For her or any other Tran dynast, the rule for rebels had been, whenever possible, “Hang first and ask questions afterward.” One more thing to be changed. If possible.

 

 

The charts on his office wall grew more detailed, and he collected chests of papers.

  Item. It had been the warmest spring in living memory. Some farmers, heeding the priests of Yatar, planted early, and found their crops growing high. Others waited. All chanced heavy rains and hail. The entire pattern of Tran agriculture was changing.

  Rick’s survey teams went through the land, teaching and gathering data.

  According to the reports, they did more data gathering than teaching; but they had accomplished the first agricultural survey in Tran history. What crops here? What last year? Are you using the new plows introduced by the University? What fertilizers?

  Those using the new plows were able to get their seeds in so fast they were heard to talk of being able to get a second crop before winter. Those who’d used the new plows the year before talked even louder. With more fodder during the winter, their draft animals were stronger than usual.

  Rick gathered all the information and reduced it to statistics. The raw data sheets went up to the University. Slowly his data base grew.

  He also dictated letters. One went to Gwen; that one he wrote himself. Except for Tylara no Tran native could read English, so that for sending messages to Gwen and the mercs it was better than code. That was worth the inconvenience of writing for yourself.

 

Find out if Marselius can send us a dozen or so trained clerks and scribes who can write well and teach things like basic filing procedures. It may be, of course, that the Roman civil service of the time of Septimius Severus has vanished, but I rather think something very like it must have survived. Else how could they have kept even this much of an Empire together for so long? And I am told the Roman “scribes” are said to know magic. Probably simple scientific training. Whatever it is, we can use it.

 

Which would set Gwen hunting bureaucrats among the Roman rebels. The priesthood of Yatar would bean-other problem. If Rick could forge a Roman alliance, would the priests cooperate? The Romans were Christians who persecuted Yatar and Vothan One-eye as pagan gods. Lord, Rick thought. What must I do? I need the hierarchy of Yatar, to spread science through the land. And will the Christians cooperate?

  The priests of Yatar were the key to survival. They must have a strong organization, or the temples couldn’t have survived the Rogue Star and the nuclear bombardments, not once but at least three times. With the cooperation of Yanulf and the priesthood much could be accomplished; without it, Rick was in trouble.

  It was ironic, his going to all this trouble to re-invent bureaucracy. However, the whole idea looked different here on Tran, where information that could save thousands of lives might be lost because there wasn’t a policy of writing up three copies of everything.

  Rick put down the pen and held his head in his hands. More than ever he felt the pressure. “Every time I want to do anything, I first have to do two other things, one of which is impossible,” he shouted. “Tiger by the tail, hell! I’ve got two tigers, and I’ve got to get them together so I can ride them. One foot on each!”

  There was no one to hear him but the walls of his office, and they made no answer. Rick sighed and lifted his pen again. He had to write Warner at the University...

 

 

7

 

 

The chair creaked under the weight of Caius Marius Marselius, onetime Prefect of the Western Marches, now Caesar by right of conquest and proclamation of the legions. It was not a title he had sought, but once the proclamation was made it was one he had to win or be killed for. Not just him. His son as well. All his house. Flaminius would leave none alive.

  And when Marselius marched in triumph to Rome? What of the house of Flaminius? Time to think of that when it happened.

  Outside they were lighting the street lamps. Marselius could see them go on, one by one, down at the base of the hill where his villa stood. Benevenutum was a large city, third largest in the empire, and in many ways as pleasant as Rome; but it wasn’t Rome, and an Emperor who did not hold Rome was only a rebel.

  Marselius bent forward to squint at the parchment he held. The late-afternoon light was fast failing. His

  freedman Lucius wrote with a firm hand, but it seemed harder to read lately.

  Well, neither of them was getting any younger. His own eyes were not what they used to be. He summoned a servant to bring lamps, then he waited until the man went out before spreading the letter again. Not that he did not trust his servants, but this was too important. The confidential report on the embassy coming to him from the Lord and Lady of Cheim and the Kingdom of Drantos, written by the one man he trusted entirely...

 

Drumold, father to the Eqetassa Tylara, would seem a typical barbarian chieftain. However, he is very intelligent and entirely trusted by the Lord Rick. He has made enemies among the clan chiefs of his own land in his loyalty to the Eqeta, which hints of a kind of courage most uncommon among barbarians. They are often brave in battle, but seldom understand and still more seldom show the higher civic virtues.

 

Lucius, Lucius, my old friend, thought Marselius. You spent too long as tutor to my son Publius. Now you will lecture, whether it is needed or not. Or perhaps you are rambling as old men often do. Well, before the snow comes again we shall both be so high in the world that everyone will listen to us for as long as we want, or else we shall be forever silent.

 

The Lady Gwen Tremaine is of the star-folk, but knows much history and reads Latin well. She is said to be very intelligent but is certainly young for the place she holds in the embassy. It is said that she owes this to having been Lord Rick’s mistress, after the death of her husband.

  The Guardsmen of Chelm—

 

Marselius skimmed the description of the embassy’s escort until he found mention of star weapons. Good. They were bringing one which used the fire-powder. Too many of his officers were skeptical about the star weapons and badly needed a demonstration, his own son among them. He himself would not mind learning more about these new war machines, so that if the alliance came about he would be able to plan the battles properly.

  Certainly he would not need that many more ordinary soldiers. He had two full good legions of his own and a third which was neither so full or so good, plus enough cohorts of foot archers and pikemen to make up two more legions if that honorable title could ever again be allowed to foot soldiers. Then there were the light horse and foot scouts recruited locally. No lack of men.

  Except—if Lord Rick did send a strong force as well as star weapons, it would release more of his own men for local defense. The reservists in the legions whose homes were close to the boundary between the two Caesars would fight better if they knew their own homes were safe. More militiamen would come forward. And there were the borders to the south to be held. He could use what Rick might send-and it was never good to let a man know that he could buy your friendship cheaply. No, Lord Rick would have to be ready to send an army to Rome if he ever wanted an army from Rome.

  Marselius got up to pace back and forth in front of the great map on the wall. Mentally he shifted a cohort here, sent a tribune to raise more militia there. Everything would of course be discussed at length in the council of war he must hold before the embassy came, but he wanted his own ideas fully prepared before then. The older he grew, the more necessary it was to appear infallible and the harder it was to do so.

  Gwen Tremaine stretched luxuriously and let herself slide down into the hot water until only her face was above the surface. The tiled tank wasn’t quite large enough for a swimming pool, but otherwise it was living up to everything the name “Roman bath” implied. It was the first really adequate bath she’d had since Les dumped her on Tran.

  It had surprised her, how much more important the little things of civilization seemed when you didn’t have them. Sometimes they loomed larger than the big ones. She knew that if she got a cavity the tooth would have to come out, with no anaesthetic except ethanol. She knew that if she had another baby and needed a Caesarian, she would probably die, and the baby hadn’t a much better chance. She could accept these dangers, at least intellectually.

  Hot baths were another matter. You missed them every morning and every night and every time you got sweaty or dirty. It was the same way with Vivaldi concertos, cold beer, Chicken Kiev, pantyhose— “Lady Gwen?” said a small voice from right above her head.

  Gwen controlled a foolish impulse to plunge out of sight. Instead she sat up, crossing her arms over her breasts. “Yes?”

  “My name is Octavia. I’ve been sent to help you with your bath.”

  Which was no surprise. She’d rather expected someone waiting for her when she went in to take her bath. If Marselius was going to do her the courtesy of letting her bathe alone, he would certainly not leave out things like servants, towels, and scented oil.

  “Thank you, Octavia.” Gwen ducked under to get the last of the soap out of her hair, then climbed out of the bath. Octavia clapped her hands, and two older girls came in with deliciously warmed towels. When they wrapped her in a robe of fine wool, Gwen felt she had found civilization at last. Eventually the others were dismissed, and Gwen was alone with Octavia.

  Who was she? While the others had dried her body and combed her hair, Gwen examined the girl minutely. Octavia looked to be about twelve or thirteen, and was already at least two inches taller than Gwen. With her big bones she’d grow even more. She was red-haired, but apart from that her strong, rather plain features had a lot in common with Marselius’s.

  And although her manners were impeccable, she spoke to the servants in a voice which made her requests orders to be obeyed. Gwen looked down at the hem of the girl’s robe. It was embroidered with an elaborate pattern done in gold thread and what looked like pieces of blue enamel or seashells.

  When the others had left, Gwen said, “You’re kin to Marselius Caesar, aren’t you?”

  The girl dropped the towel and blushed as red as her hair. She didn’t seem to know which way to look, other than not at Gwen. Finally she said, with an admirable effort to control her voice, “Are you a witch?”

  “No. You just look like Marselius, and your gown doesn’t look like a servant’s clothing.”

  Octavia looked down at the hem but couldn’t blush any brighter. “Grandfather will be angry with me for not changing my gown. It’s the sort of thing he never forgets himself. I suppose you learned to notice it too, when you were a soldier.”

  “I’m not a real soldier,” said Gwen. “My husband was. After he was killed they needed someone to read all sorts of books for information about our enemies. I was going to have a baby, so they wanted to help me and gave me the job.” Gwen had told that story so often that she almost believed it herself. She smiled. “Don’t imagine me in armor and a plumed helmet, waving a sword at the head of my troops.”

  “If we had your kind of soldier in Rome, I could be one too,” said Octavia. “I like to read. In fact, my father says I spend too much time with the books.”

  Impulsively Gwen hugged the girl. She stiffened but didn’t draw away. “I’m sorry. It’s just that you sound like me when I was your age. My father said the same thing about me.”

  Fortunately she’d been able to do other things besides read, and get straight A’s, like sell stale bread to chicken farmers and other things which made money. Also, she’d never been short of boyfriends, although none of them stayed around for more than three dates after they realized how much brighter she was. Octavia wasn’t going to be able to do much except read her books until she was old enough to be maEried off. That wouldn’t be long. Caesar’s family must marry, and quickly, to cement alliances...

  “Are you a spy?” Gwen asked.

  Octavia giggled. “Yes, but it’s not what you think.” She paused, then said impulsively, “Lady Gwen, if you promise not to tell anybody what I say, I’ll tell you why I’m here.”

  What an offer! Gwen didn’t hesitate a moment. “By Yatar Skyfather and Hestia I swear I will never tell anybody what you say except the Lord Rick, and then only if he needs to know. I can’t break my oath to him, you see. Is there anything else I should swear by?”

  “No.” Octavia looked thoughtful. “You must tell me sometime of Yatar, and I’ll tell you about Christ.” Then she really smiled for the first time. “You see, my father Publius wants to sleep with you. So my grandfather asked me to be in your company a lot. That way my father will be unable to get you alone.

  He would be ashamed to ask you to go to bed with him while I was around.”

  “I should hope so!” said Gwen indignantly. Then she laughed. The idea of this likable twelve-year-old girl as a chaperone to Gwen Tremaine was impossible to take with a straight face. If Octavia only knew how Gwen had lived—Except if it really did save her from having to either refuse Publius or submit to him, there was nothing funny about it. She hadn’t heard that Publius was a Don Juan, but she had heard that he was arrogant and hot-tempered. That sort of man often disliked being turned down, enough to make trouble for the woman. Refusing him could be trouble.

  And some day Publius would be Caesar, if Rick’s plans worked, and they probably would.

  Actually, the offer was flattering. Caesar’s heir must have his choice of women. And there were advantages to being Caesar’s lover. . . but not on a planet with no contraception except the rhythm method and very little obstetrical knowledge! If she’d wanted a man in her bed, she could have had Caradoc for a husband a year ago. Or Larry Warner, who was kind and gentle and intelligent and a very good partner in managing the University. Or— “How does your father know he would find me attractive?” Gwen asked.

  “He saw your arrival. When your party was greeted by my grandfather’s officers, my father was among the Guardsmen. He often does that.”

  “I see.” So. Intelligent, if devious. At least Publius knew the value of information. “I’m flattered,” she said. “But I’m still really in mourning for my husband. Sometimes it’s hard to believe he’s dead. You know they never found his body?” Another story she’d told so many times that she had to fight not to believe it herself.

  “That must make it worse, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Something could be made of this girl. Caesar’s granddaughter. “Have you brothers?” Gwen asked, although she was certain she’d heard- “No. I’m my father’s only child. To his great disappointment.” She lowered her voice. “He doesn’t even have illegitimate children. Not since he was ill—”

  Mumps, probably, Gwen thought. “That makes you an important girl.” It also removes one chief reason for refusing an offer by Publius. We’ll play that one as it lies— “They say I will be. If Grandfather can capture

  Rome, then some day my husband will be Caesar.” Octavia looked very serious. “I don’t think I’ll have much to say about who that is, either. Did you choose your husband?”

  “Yes. Where I’m from women always choose their own.” And it doesn’t seem to work any better than arranged marriages, either. “Octavia, you must swear an oath to me, one like I swore to you. You must not talk about anything I tell you, except with your grandfather and your father. Then we can be friends.”

  “Do I have to tell my father? Grandfather doesn’t tell him a lot of things he thinks he should know. I’ve heard Father cursing about that.”

  So Marselius did not entirely trust his own son and presumptive heir. That was information worth a good deal-so much so that Gwen almost felt guilty about making friends with the girl. She was so obviously lonely, desperate for intelligent company where she didn’t have to hide her talents, that— The next moment Octavia made matters worse.

  “I’m glad we’re going to be friends, Lady Gwen. It will be a lot easier to keep my father away from you, if you know what I’m doing. I told my grandfather that, but he didn’t seem to understand what I was talking about.”

  “He has a lot on his mind,” said Gwen absently. And even when he didn’t, Marselius Caesar didn’t seem like the sort of man to listen to his granddaughter’s complaints.

  She needs a friend, Gwen thought. And I can be that to her. Our cause is her cause, and she may some day cOme to see that. And she needs a teacher, someone to tell her of the changes coming to Tran. If—when her grandfather becomes undisputed Caesar, Octavia will hold power enough. Power during The Time, power for two generations after. In Rome, the best organized nation on Tran. I will deceive her as little as I can, but I have no real choice. This opportunity – “By Saints Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and by Holy Mary, I swear that I shall say nothing of what the Lady Gwen tells me, except to my grandfather Marselius Caesar,” said Octavia. “And him only if he asks me.”

  “Good,” said Gwen, in a normal tone. She was tired of whispering. She dropped her robe on the couch and started pulling on her clothes. “And you can tell me of Christ,” she said.

  After all, Gwen thought, I was raised Christian. If I have a religion, that’s it. If I let the Romans convert me—I’ll have to ask Rick about that. It might be useful.

 

 

Marselius Caesar’s chair creaked not quite in rhythm with his pen. This letter to Lucius could not be trusted to any scribe. If he could have sent it by a bird of the air or a starman’s flying machine he would have done so.

 

--would have seen their way clear to aiding us anyway, certainly the utter folly of Flaminius the

  Dotard hastened matters. He not only refused to permit the embassy to enter his claimed land, he even refused to offer them safe conduct. When the Lord Drumold heard this last, his anger was frightful.

 

In fact, the clan chief had nearly provoked a fight with Flaminius’s patrol by the language he used about their Caesar, his habits, and all his ancestors back to the founding of Rome.

 

So we will have the aid of the Lord Rick, in whatever amount we may need. I still hope we will not need any. Flaminius may not be his own master; that evil message may have come from Senators and officers who fear to lose everything if he submits himself to me. It is to be hoped that these men will listen to reason after we issue a proclamation of a general pardon. I do not think the Senate will delay long in issuing it, although there is some opposition.

 

He started to add, “including Publius,” then decided against it. Lucius had known Publius since the boy was six; he could fill in that sort of detail for himself.

 

Much honor is also due to the Lady Gwen. She has done good work, particularly in choosing the scribes and clerks we are sending to Drantos under the treaty. The Westerner’s asking for them helped convince many of the Senate that we were not dealing with barbarians, much as the firepowder weapons helped convince the army. The Lady Gwen showed so much knowledge of scribes’ work that one wonders how a woman of equestrian rank came by it.

  She has also become a good friend to the Lady Octavia. This I welcome. Except for yourself, none of Octavia’s teachers have been worthy of her. As she will be of an age for betrothal within no more than a year and a half, this has caused some concern.

 

Another sign of age—worrying about your grandchildren’s fitness for marriage. Back to what he knew best.

 

What we can ask for from the Westerners, is likely to be more than we need. However, we can ask for two legions of foot, one of pikes and one of archers. There will also be a force of horsemen equal to another legion, including mounted archers. We will have firepowder weapons, and the starmen will bring all of their star weapons which are fit for a long campaign.

  I hope there will be no need of a long campaign. With such strength, we can stand up to Flaminius in a pitched battle with a good hope of winning it. One such victory would be enough to give us Rome, before men and wealth which will be needed for The Time is destroyed.

  Let us pray for the favor of Christ and the aid of St. Michael.

  To Lucius, Freedman of this house, Friend to Caesar, Honor and Farewell.

 

Caius Marius Marselius Caesar.

 

 

8

 

 

Larry Warner looked up at the balloon swaying overhead and decided that it was about as inflated as it would ever be. He nodded to the man standing beside him.

  “Okay, Murphy.”

  Ben Murphy raised both hands. “Let go the top rope! Second crew, heave away!”

  Five men at the foot of one fifty-foot pole let go the first line and stepped back. At the foot of the second pole on the opposite side of the hot-air balloon, five more men started pulling. The rope slipped through a ring at the top of the first pole, then a loop at the top of the balloon, sixty feet above the ground. Finally it slipped through the ring at the top of the last pole and fell on top of the men pulling it. From the way they were laughing and cursing, Warner didn’t think anyone was hurt.

  He folded his arms on his chest, hoping for Murphy to give the next order on his own. Ben would be taking the First Balloon Squadron (one balloon and about forty men) on campaign against Flaminius Caesar in another three or four ten-days. It would have been simpler for Warner to go himself, but Captain Rick’s orders were strict: nobody from the University faculty into combat. Murphy and Reznick tossed for it, and Reznick won. Or had Murphy? Warner knew better than to ask.

  It didn’t matter much anyway. Larry Warner was happy not to be shot at. Besides, he’d been first up, the first aeronaut anywhere on Tran! That had impressed everyone, including all the girls and even Gwen Tremaine. There were rewards to be gained from heroism- But all in all, the life of a university professor was

  better. Especially in this University, where the faculty was in full control.

  The balloon swayed a little more with the overhead rope gone, but the men on the ground lines had it firmly under control. The overhead rope strung between the poles had held it up while the hot air from the fire under the launching platform flowed up the inflation tube underneath and filled the balloon. Warner had figured that one out himself, and was quite proud of his invention.

  “Draw the neck rope!” shouted Murphy. A team of men pulled on the rope which tightened the neck of the tube hanging down from the balloon. Now the balloon looked like a gigantic mushroom, with a large misshapen head and a very short stem. Warner checked his gear and walked toward the platform. Murphy could finish the job on his own now, except for the last order to “Let go.”

  “Cover the fire!” The men who’d tightened the tube pulled a brass plate over the hole in the platform. Warner climbed up onto the platform as the men wrestled the observation basket on to the brass plate. When the balloon rose, it had to lift the observation basket and crew straight up. Dragging was a real danger at launch and landing times, which was why the balloon needed such a large ground crew.

  But the benefits! “Your turn next, Ben,” Warner called.

  “Right. Sure you don’t want me this time?”

  “No, I’d better check things out.” Not that Murphy couldn’t do it, but that would be bad for Warner’s image. And there was the new telegraph system, a thin wire stretching from the balloon along the tether; the only Morse operators in the University were Larry Warner and two of his crewmen, and they didn’t speak English...

  Warner checked the observation basket and its gear even more carefully than he’d checked his own. Today was supposed to be an endurance test, to see how long the balloon could stay up with extra ballast and fuel in place of a second man. There were extra bricks of the resin-coated straw they used for fuel when aloft tied to the netting above the basket. If sparks from the brass firepot in the floor of the basket reached them, they could be cut loose before they set the reed basket itself afire. Around the rim of the basket were hung sandbags for ballast and two skins of drinking water.

  All improvised, all Warner’s inventions. Well, with a little help from the others, but not much. And he’d got it all done before Gwen came back from Benevenutum.

  Everything seemed to be all right. Some of the men in the Squadron believed that Warner was a wizard and the balloon was his familiar spirit, which would tell him of any negligence on their part in preparing it for the flight. He was supposed to discourage superstitions, and he would-eventually. Just now it was handy for them to think that. It was a long way down if anything went wrong.

  Warner climbed into the basket and braced himself, legs spread wide and the fingers of one hand twined in the netting. The men on the ropes slacked off a little and the balloon lifted a few inches clear of the platform. Warner grinned. He had a lot of excuses for taking this flight, but one he didn’t admit was simple enough. He liked it. The nearest thing to flying...

  Except for the length, this flight should be almost routine. It looked like there might to too much wind up high, ~but here in the lee of Ben Hakon he should be safe enough. Idly he wondered who the hill had been named for.

  The men who’d moved the basket and handled the overhead ropes now took their places on the handles of the winch. If Campbell had been allowed to make gears for the winch, it wouldn’t have needed twelve or fifteen men. However, that was another of Captain Rick’s orders-”I don’t want it perfect, I want it Thursday!” So the winch needed a dozen men on the handles when the balloon was full, and the balloon itself had no rip cord or top vent. It rose or fell with the air inside it and the sheer strength of the men on the winch.

  That, though, was the Mark I, and his crews were already at work on Mark II. They might have it finished by the time Murphy took it to battle.

  He made one last check. “Looking good,” he called. “Let it play out some.” Murphy nodded. The balloon rose about three feet above the platform, before the winch crew caught it. It was crude, but as long as it was the only balloon on the planet, who cared?

  Warner took a deep breath and began to sing as the winch crew let the balloon rise. He’d sung on the first ascent, to keep his teeth from chattering from sheer blue funk. Some of his crew thought it was a hymn to Yatar Skyfather, and now they expected him to sing every time the balloon went up. He wondered what Murphy would do. Oh, well.

 

Off we go, into the wild blue yonder,

  Flying high, into the sun.

 

As the platform dropped away below him, he saw Gwen standing by one of the poles, trying not to laugh. Was it the song, or his singing?

 

 

Therrit had planned to do his work while the balloon was still rising. Lord Corgarff had said this would do the most damage. However, Lord Corgarff didn’t know how many men were around the winch while the balloon was going up. Therrit did not trust Lord Corgarff to pay the promised gold to his family if he was caught before he could even do the work.

  So Therrit stood well back, until the balloon looked no larger than his fist held out in front of his nose. Then the men on the winch pushed a long wooden rod in under the drum, to stop its turning. The rod could be put in place and then pulled out again quickly, without anyone having to reach in under the drum and risk getting their hands broken.

  More than half the drum was still covered with rope when the balloon stopped rising. Therrit realized that if he could pull out the rod, the balloon would probably start rising again, just as Lord Corgarff wanted. It would be harder to make pulling the rod out look like an accident, but if there was enough smoke no one would see him, and they would never know. The crewmen thought the balloon could talk, but Therrit knew better. Warner had told him many times.

  It was too bad that Professor Warner had to die. He was a gentle master, considerate of his servants.

  But Warner had no gold to keep Therrit’s sisters from starving. They could enter Warner’s service, but the Star Lords had no understanding of what was fit for the daughters of yeoman and what work was fit only for slaves or freedwomen. He might—he might loan Therrit’s sister to the Lord Elliot, as he did with his own Sara!

  No. The only safety for his family was the protection of his clan. Lord Corgarff would not order this without the consent of Chief Dughuilas, and Dughuilas could protect anyone!

  Therrit waited a little longer, until he saw the Lady Gwen walking back to her tent. Corgarff did not seem to care if the lady was hurt or not, but Therrit did not want to make war on women, particularly this one. She treated the sons and daughters of yeomen as if they were the children of knights.

  Therrit waited so long that he became aware that Corgarff was looking at him, rather than up at the balloon like everyone else. The lord’s patience must be running out. Therritwalked cautiously toward the platform, pulling a brick of sky fire out of his pouch. It looked like any other brick from the outside, but it was only a thin layer of straw and resin pasted over a leather lining. The leather was filled with firepowder and other things to make smoke. Therrit walked until he was within easy range of the banked-up fire under the platform. Then he tossed the brick underhanded on to the coals.

  The firepowder made all the smoke he’d expected, also a noise like the time when lightning struck his father’s barn and a smell like the hot spring behind the University. Everybody except Therrit was caught by surprise. All those near the platform scrambled up, and a few ran. Therrit threw in a second brick, there was more noise and smoke, and it looked like everyone was running.

  He couldn’t wait to see better. He ran up to the platform, drawing his knife as he did so. Having gone this far, he had to be ready to cut the rope if everything else failed.

  The locking rod came out at the second pull. He saw the winch handles begin to move and jumped aside. The winch rattled, the handles whirled fast enough to break a careless man’s bones, and the rope on the drum shrank. Therrit pulled away the bronze lid over the firehole, cursing as it scorched his fingers, and tossed in the last two bricks. The noises made the platform shake and the winch creak, and the smoke came up so thickly that Therrit could barely see or breathe. Choking and holding the rod out in front of him like a blind man’s stick, he groped his way to the edge of the platform and jumped down to the ground.

 

 

Warner knew something was wrong when he saw the smoke swallow the platform and winch and heard the explosions. He didn’t know what until the balloon suddenly started rising. Even then he was more interested than frightened. The winch getting out of control was something he’d lived through before, for a couple Of minutes at least. The Balloon Squadron was a pretty good outfit, considering that he was the only man in it who’d ever heard of balloons six ten-days ago.

  Then he saw the men scattering from around the winch, and more smoke billowing up. He hoped whatever was wrong didn’t wreck the winch completely.

  The balloon jerked sideways, like a mouse batted by a playful cat. Warner shouted heartfelt obscenities. Then he had to cling to the basket and the netting with both hands and both feet, wishing he was a monkey with a tail he could use as well.

  He’d risen out of the lee of Ben Hakon into the wind. From the way the grass on the hilltop was moving, the wind must be blowing half a gale. He swore again. He should have sent somebody up to the hilltop to test the wind, or carried more ballast so that the balloon wouldn’t rise—

  The balloon jerked again. Now Warner felt more like a fish being played by a fisherman. A cold spray drenched him as one of the water bags burst. That would make the balloon even lighter, which right now was the last thing he needed. More jerks and Warner heard the frame of the basket creak and ropes part in the netting. If this went on much longer, the basket would rack itself apart and leave him—

  Suddenly the balloon was rising again. Warner froze in the netting until it stopped for a moment, then peered over the edge. The rope was loose and someone was clinging to the free end. As Warner watched, the man dropped to the ground and lay there. The balloon shot up again. The basket still swayed ominously, but with the rope loose the strain on it was less. Warner slipped down inside the basket and wished he could sing. Right now, Yatar Skyfather really needed propitiating! His mouth was so dry that he couldn’t have sung a note with a gun pointed at him.

 

 

Therrit was slipping away from the platform when the rope came loose. His heart was pounding like a drum and he was sure that everyone was looking at him and fingering their swords.

  He still stopped to watch Murphy’s frantic chase after the loose end of the rope. He cheered when the star lord caught it, and groaned when he lost his grip and fell.

  Murphy lay like the dead.

  “You did it!” screamed a voice almost in Therrit’s ear. “I saw you! Traitor!”

  Therrit whirled, to see Lord Corgarff coming at him with a drawn sword. He looked wildly around, his universe crumbling. His laird, his chief, accusing him! “No, lord! Lord, you owe me protection!”

  “I am chief to no traitors!” Corgarff screamed.

  Therrit cursed. There was no place to run. Even so he hesitated to raise weapons against his lord-but it was that or die here. And who then to watch over his sisters?

  He’d sheathed his dagger and Corgarff attacked so fast there was no time to draw it. He was still holding the locking rod from the winch. He swung frantically and the heavy rod smashed into Corgarff ‘s sword arm. He howled and his weapon went flying.

  Therrit didn’t bother to pick it up. Men had heard Corgarff and were running toward him. It would be hopeless to fight. Yet—where could he run?

  Was there no one to protect him? Warner might, but the Professor was high in the balloon, a dead man. Murphy? The star lord lay on the grass. He would be no help. Then who?

  The Lady Gwen might protect him. Run, then, run to her and clasp her knees to beg for mercy for his family. He was a lost man, but the Lady Gwen might spare his sisters- Gwen ran to the entrance of her tent when she heard the explosions. She was in time to see the balloon shoot up and break loose and Murphy’s heroic try at catching it. She sent one of the Guardsmen off to bring Sergeant McCleve for the injured man and another to get Sergeant Elliot. He was going to be needed, if only to make her feel that she knew what she was doing until she really did. Then she turned back into the tent, to dismiss her scribe and pull on her cloak.

  Thus there was only one Guardsman on duty outside the tent when Therrit ran up and threw himself at Gwen’s feet. The Guardsman tried to pull him away but he clutched her knees. “Lady, lady, save me! Lord Corgarff wants my blood, but I only followed him for gold. My family will starve if they do not—”

  “Wait!” said Gwen. His babbling was making it impossible for her to think. “Lord Corgarff paid you to let the balloon go?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now he wants to kill you, to keep from talking?”

  “Yes. If you save me, I will tell—”

  “There’s that damned dung-spawned traitor now!” came from outside the tent. Gwen jumped back and nearly fell as the man clutched her skirt.

  “Let go, you fool!”

  “Lord Corgarff, the Lady Gwen has—” began the Guardsman.

  “The Lady Gwen will not protect a traitor, unless the High Rexja’s bought her too!”

  “You cannot pass, lord-ahhhggghhh!” and the sound of steel into flesh and against bone.

  The Guardsman’s fidelity to his oath bought the fugitive the time to crawl under the table, the scribe the time to crawl out of the tent, and Gwen the time to puli out her pistol. She could barely hold the .45 with two hands, but she had it aimed at the door when Corgarff charged through.

  The sight of a star weapon in a woman’s hands stopped him for a moment. “Lady Gwen, put that away. You have drawn it in the cause of an evil—”

  “I heard what you think, Corgarff,” she said. After she was sure both her hands and her voice would stay steady, she went on, “I will protect this man until he has told me everything—”

  Corgarff’s cry was an animal’s. Fortunately his first slash was wild. His sword hacked into the tent pole. He was raising it for a cut at Gwen’s head when Elliot’s voice came from outside.

  “Freeze, you son of a bitch!”

  In desperation Corgarff whirled to slash at Elliot. Sergeant Major Elliot laughed as he jumped back out of range.

  “Don’t kill him!” Gwen shouted.

  “No problem.” Elliot’s Colt blasted twice and Corgarff screamed as the slugs ploughed into his thigh and leg. He took a step forward, then started to fall. Elliot slammed the pistol alongside his head to make sure he went down all the way.

  “Is it over?” Gwen asked.

  “So far,” Elliot said. “‘Cept we might lose this one.” He raised his voice. “Send for the corpsmen!”

  Gwen held the tent pole to keep from falling. Elliot caught her before she brought the tent down on top of them, then led her to a chair and checked her pistol. “Miss Tremaine, you really ought to practice more with that. You had the safety on. He’d have run you through before you could fire a shot.”

  “Really?” Gwen started to laugh at the silliness of her own remark, then caught herself before she lost control. “Get McCleve and more Guardsmen. Make sure nobody we don’t know gets near these two until we’ve talked to them. I mean nobody, Sergeant Major.”

  Elliot automatically snapped to attention. He knew when an officer was speaking. “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “Thank you. And we’ll want messengers to go to the Garioch and Drantos.” She swallowed. “Is there anything I’ve left out?”

  “Not that I know of, Ma’am.” He bent over Corgarff. “But this one’s going to need first aid, or he’ll bleed to death before McCleve gets here. Those forty-fives tear a man up some.”

  “All right. You stand guard. No one comes in, Sergeant. I’ll try to help him.”

  What lay under Corgarff ‘s bloody clothing was as bad as Gwen expected. Somehow she managed to go to work on it. After a while she found it was no harder than cutting up onions and green peppers for a homemade pizza. Maybe she was finally adapting to living in the Middle Ages. She’d have to, or spend half her time in her room and the other half being sick to her stomach.

 

 

9

 

 

This is it, Larry Warner thought. Jesus Christ. Come all the way here on a mucking flying saucer, and get killed in a hot-air balloon. Jesus H. Christ.

  The balloon continued to rise. The air inside was cooling, so that it had lost part of its lift, but the balloon’s slightly flattened shape gave additional lift from the updrafts. Warner huddled in the bottom of the basket while he worked this out. Eventually he got up the nerve to look over the edge at the ground below.

  It was hard to judge his ground speed. He tried to estimate distances between farms as he passed over them, timing his passage with his watch as he swept across the valley below. It was difficult because there were few roads, and nothing was square. Tran was a planet of horse-and centaur-carts, not automobiles.

  After several attempts he got the same result twice. He was probably doing about thirty-five miles an hour, much faster than the best any rescue party could do. If he stayed up no more than an hour, he’d be nearly a day’s ride from the University. The only hope he had for quick rescue was to come down on top of someone friendly—which wasn’t very likely, because he had no control over altitude.

  He could rise—a little—by dropping ballast, but as for bringing the balloon down before the hot air cooled and it lost lift—well, that was what rip panels were for, in balloons back on Earth. In theory, he could climb up the netting and slash at the cloth with a knife, to let out some of the hot air. One look at all the empty air between him and the ground cured him of the notion. He wasn’t that desperate yet.

  The best course looked to be letting the balloon cool naturally. He could slow its fall if necessary by dropping ballast, rather than by lighting up the fire. Meanwhile he would pull up the rope and make a big loop in the end. He hoped he remembered enough of his Boy Scout knot-tying to make one which would hold. That would give people on the ground a better hold on the rope.

  Then—wait until he passed low enough over a village for the rope to reach the ground. Throw the rope out, shout to the people, and hope they would understand what he was saying. It would still take luck, but not as much as bringing the balloon down by himself. It was going to take luck to live through this. He’d have to be very lucky to save the balloon for the campaign.

  Moving cautiously, with one hand always gripping the rigging, Warner made a complete scan around the balloon. When he looked to the north-northwest, he let out a yell which would have scared any seagulls within a half a mile. Then he took the names of most of Tran’s gods in vain.

  He’d completely forgotten about the Labyrinth Range, a tangle of jagged peaks and dense thickets at the head of the Saronic Gulf. They got their name because few who tried finding a path through them ever got out the other side. Sensible people preferred to go around either end of the range.

  Warner wouldn’t have any choice. The range was a good seventy miles from end to end, and there was no way at all to steer a free balloon. He would have to go over.

  How high? One task of the University was mapping Tran; they were the only geodetic survey the planet had. He’d sent a team of locals out with a crude transit to measure mountain heights—And if he remembered right, the Labyrinth Range was three thousand meters high.

  Nine thousand feet. More than that. A lot higher than he was just now. Twice as high, maybe.

  Would it be better to try to land? No. Not in this wind. Neither he nor the balloon would live through the experience. I’ll just have to go over, he thought. Be still, my heart— Tain’t funny, another part of him said, but he ignored that. Better to laugh, and not think about it. He looked down once more to be sure, and decided. The ground was already rising into the foothills of the Labyrinths. He’d have to get up to ten thousand feet and stay there for at least an hour. The Labyrinths were thirty miles across at their widest point. If he came down anywhere inside them, he’d freeze or starve to death before they found him, if anyone could be persuaded to go looking, and assuming he was lucky enough to survive landing on a glacier...

  Get the rope up first. Can’t dump that. Need it. Have to come down on the other side.

  Which is the Pirate Lands, more or less claimed by Rome but in practice abandoned to anyone who wanted to live there. They weren’t worth the troops it would take to garrison them. And beyond there are salt marshes, far too wide to cross. It’s the Pirate Lands or nothing...

  So. First things first. Get a fire going, then pull up the rope. He took three fire bricks from the rigging and stuffed them into the fire pot. His Zippo was filled with naptha, and hard to light, but eventually it burned, and once he had flame the bricks caught nicely. The resin in the fire bricks was extracted from something the natives called volcano-bush. It grew in patches in the forests to the south. People said that in late summer, when the bushes were full of resin, lightning striking a patch could make it go up like a bomb, acres at a time. In winter and spring the bush wasn’t as resin-loaded, but there was still plenty to provide fuel for the balloon’s firepot.

  He had to lay on six more bricks before the balloon was rising fast enough to suit him. He was sure he’d overdone it. There was undoubtedly a long lag between making heat and getting lift. But the mountains were coming closer and closer, and it was better to be too high than too low...

  The fire blazed hotter and hotter. Soon he had to flatten himself against the side of the basket to keep from being scorched. He hoped the firepot wouldn’t crack or the basket catch fire.

  At least there seemed to be plenty of wind over the Labyrinths. He saw a plume of snow trailing from one peak in his path. Unfortunately that peak was also still above him. He threw on another brick, then counted what was left of his fuel supply. About half gone. Better try dumping ballast for a change. There was also the second water bag, but everything he’d been taught said that drinking water is the last thing to go.

  He dropped two sandbags, then the mountains were on him.

 

 

The balloon came closer to the range; then, suddenly, it began to rise, plummeting higher and swifter than Warner had ever seen.

  “Updrafts!” he shouted. Of course there’d be an updraft on the windward side of the mountains. It lifted him so fast that his nose began to bleed, and his ears hurt dreadfully until he could make them pop. Even the fillings in his teeth hurt.

  By noon he’d left the Labyrinths behind him, after crossing them with several thousand feet to spare. Now the problem was cold. He’d been dressed for a summer day in Tamaerthon, and the temperature up here was well below freezing. The thinner air of Tran meant the temperature dropped off faster with height. It also meant that his present altitude was the equivalent of the tops of the Alps or Rockies on Earth, high enough to make breathing hard.

  “Hoo-hah,” he shouted. “Mucking bastards. Join the army and see the world, they said. Hell, they said the world. Didn’t say dogmeat about any other worlds. Recruiting officers. They always lie to you—”

  There was a terrible temptation to do something, but he was just rational enough to know he was suffering from oxygen starvation. Better to sit still and rage at the world. Presently he began to sing “The Friggin’ Falcon.”

 

 

When the balloon descended to a lower altitude, Warner could think again. This time he had few choices. His fire bricks were nearly gone, and if he didn’t come down here, he’d be into the salt marshes.

  The cold dry air at high altitude had left him thirsty. He pulled the plug on the water bag and drank until he was clear-headed and hungry. He munched a piece of dried meat from his ration pouch and composed a mental memo, suggesting that the next Shalnuksi ship be asked to bring a few parachutes for the Balloon Squadron.

  Now that his fingers were thawed out, he could tie a large bowline in the end of the rope. He was just in time. The balloon sank so rapidly that he knew that something would break if he hit the ground this hard. The last brick went into the fire and the last of the ballast went overboard. Then he threw the loop over the side. The ground below was forested now. If he could lasso a treetop he could pull himself down, and have something to tell Elliot besides. The sergeant could use a lariat as well as an assault rifle! He’d even roped a centaur on a bet.

  Warner wasn’t Elliot, but then the treetops weren’t centaurs. They stayed put, and eventually Warner got lucky. The loop caught a branch and went tight. By now the balloon had lost so much lift that Warner’s muscles were enough to pull it down into the trees. The minute the basket was at the level of a good stout branch, Warner grabbed it with both hands and swung himself into the tree.

  The branch promptly bent under his weight, letting him dangle until he lost his grip and dropped to the branch below. It bounced him like a ping-pong ball on to the next branch, and that one let him slide down on to the ground, a drop of ten feet onto leaves and needles. Warner hit with a paratrooper’s five-point roll.

  The first thing he did when he got his breath back was kneel and kiss the solid ground. The second thing he did was look up.

  Four bearded men looked back at him. They wore homespun breeches and leather shirts. Two carried crossbows, one a spear, and one an ax. None of them looked ready to use the weapons, but none of them looked particularly friendly either.

  Warner knelt and kissed the ground again, then stood up, holding his hands out to show he bore no weapons. After a moment the man with the bushiest beard laid down his crossbow, knelt, and also kissed the ground. The others followed him. Then they all stood up. The leader pointed upward at the balloon now draped over the treetops, then at Warner. Warner nodded. The leader made what Warner recognized as one of the signs against evil spirits, then raised his crossbow.

  Warner shook his head sharply. They probably thought the balloon was a monster which had carried him off. “No,” he said aloud. “Do not hurt it.” He hoped they’d understand him. Most of Tran spoke dialects of the same language, but some of the dialects were pretty far apart.

  “It is yours?” asked the leader.

  So he wouldn’t have to conduct the discussion in sign language. “Yes. It is my sky-beast. A wizard who is my enemy cast an evil spell on it, so that it fell from the sky. I must stay with you for some days, until I can call other wizards to my aid. They will come, take off the evil spell, and reward you well if you help me.”

  He looked sternly at them. “They will also punish you if you do not treat me well. The beast will see everything which happens among you, and tell the other wizards.”

  “You have nothing to fear,” said the leader. “We are of Two Springs village, we live by law.” He fumbled in his pouch and brought out a cake of what looked like ground-up nuts. Warner ate half of it. There were nutshells as well as meats in the cake, but that didn’t matter. They had fed him, and that made him their guest. More than unknown wizards would punish them now if they harmed him.

  He turned back to the balloon, raised his arms, and recited a few Army regulations in English. Then he smiled at the men. “The beast has seen what you did, and is glad. Now let us go to your village.”

  “Your beast will be safe?” said one of the men.

  “It will be now that it is on the ground,” said Warner. Right now the last thing he wanted to do was straw-boss a gang of Pirate Land villagers into lowering his balloon from the top of a fifty-foot tree. He wanted a drink, a meal, and a girl, and not to have to think about balloons for a while.

 

 

10

 

 

“You’re wearing a new perfume?” said Warner, toying with his glass. Gwen smiled and picked up the wine jug to refill it.

  “Yes. Marselius Caesar sent it. He said it was a gift from the Lady Octavia.”

  “How is she?”

  “She is well, but unhappy that I won’t be coming with the army.”

  “I’m glad you’re not going.”

  “I’m not,” she said tartly. Warner covered himself by taking a sip from his glass and mopping his plate with a piece of bread.

  It was frustrating. She’d obviously laid on this dinner and put on the blue gown to welcome him. She looked good, she smelled good, and he was damned sure she’d feel good if he got close enough. So far though, that blue gown might have been armor plate.

  Then she giggled.

  “Yes?” he prompted.

  “I was thinking about that girl, the one on the second night.”

  Warner was puzzled for a moment. “Oh. You mean the one who was afraid the sky-beast could see us.”

  “Yes. Did she really think it would tell tales to the other wizards?”

  “I don’t think it was the other wizards she was worried about. I think she was afraid the Great Balloon God was going to tell her husband.”

  “Oh.” She giggled again.

  He wondered what had gotten into Gwen, other than more wine than usual. She was curious about everything he’d done in Two Springs village, including the girls he’d bedded. You’d have thought she’d be jealous of that.

  “You know, I think I should have seen this before,” she said. “The people really think a balloon is magical. Even some of the people around the university, who can see that it’s a machine. Out in the villages, if someone comes in a balloon, they’ll think he’s a wizard. They’ll listen to what he says! We can start teaching them all the things they won’t learn otherwise!”

  Warner stared. It made a weird kind of sense. If the teaching squads went out with a balloon, they’d get a lot more attention. People wouldn’t sit around waiting for Old MacDonald or the village granny to try the star knowledge. It might not even have to be a man-carrying balloon, either. That would save a lot of cloth and—“The surinomaz processing!” Gwen looked ready to jump out of her chair. “We can start in that village where the midwives know how to make surinomaz into a medicine. If they’ll teach the wizards what they know, we can prove that the surinomaz is useful. People will start wanting to grow it. Larry, you may have just saved a whole planet!”

  Warner got up and went around the table. “Gwen, you’re as smart as you are beautiful. You thought of what to do with the balloons. I just went along for the ride, so to speak.”

  She stood up and kissed him on the cheek. “Larry, you’re a lot braver than you think you are.”

  Warner put his arms around her and bent to kiss her ups. For a moment he thought she would turn away. Then her face came up and their lips met. Hers trembled, then opened. He tightened his grip. Small fireworks started to go off in various parts of his body.

  He held her closely, then let his hands wander downwards.

  “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  She sighed. “Maybe I mean ‘do.’ It’s been a long time. But just for the moment, I’d like to be held, and not have to think about what happens next.”

  “Suits me.” He held her, and they stood that way for a while.

  This could be damn serious, Warner thought. She’s one hell of a girl. Nobody like her. And we’ve done pretty well, running this place. Is it time Larry Warner settled down?

  To what? Fidelity? She’d want that. More’n the local girls would. Monogamy, too. And she knows I’m no damned wizard. But it wouldn’t be so bad, and besides, it don’t have to be decided now. Nobody’s said anything about forever, just tonight...

  He bent to kiss her again.

  Crash! Wood slammed against stone and metal rang.

  “Dog!”

  An angry voice made more echoes in the room. Something struck Larry Warner’s head. A hard blow, that left a ringing in his ears. Gwen screamed.

  Warner fell to the floor as if unconscious. The instant he was down he snap-rolled under the table, then rolled again to get behind it. As he stood he drew his Walther .380 automatic, wishing it were the .45 hanging by the door with his jacket. The Walther would just have to do. By the time he was back on his feet he had spread his legs and was holding the piece in both hands, his eye sighting down the barrel at the kilted figure in the room- “Larry! No!” Gwen shouted. “No!” She dashed across the room and into Warner’s line of fire.

  He’d almost squeezed off the round! He jerked the piece upwards to point at the ceiling, and from pure rage and frustration he fired. The shot sounded very loud in the enclosed room.

  “Larry!” Gwen screamed again. Then she saw where the pistol was pointed.

  “Move!” Warner commanded. “No son of a bitch comes bustin’ in on me! I’ll blow the bastard away—” He stopped shouting as he realized who the intruder was. “Caradoc?”

  The archer captain had been in command of the search party that found Warner. He’d stayed behind to see that the balloon was safely loaded on the pack animals. And, Warner realized, he’d not only finished that task in record time, he must have ridden like hell to get here. Why? To see Gwen. And maybe jealous of Warner, too.

  Now he stood there defiantly. “If you have honor, you will allow me a weapon,” Caradoc said. “You may have your star weapons, and I my bow. . .“

  Warner laughed. “You talk about honor, Boy Scout. Not me. I fight for pay. And you’re dead.”

  “Larry, you can’t.” Gwen wasn’t shouting any longer.

  “Why not?”

  “Captain Galloway will have you shot, that’s why.”

  “I need no woman to argue for my life!” Caradoc shouted.

  “You need something you haven’t got,” Warner said. “You also need to explain how you got in here.”

  “Miss Tremaine!” The shout came from the hall.

  “Jesus, that’s Elliot,” Warner said. He raised his voice. “In here, Sergeant Major.”