“That’s my responsibility,” replied Borel, moving about to get his circulation going again. He gazed off to starboard, where the low shore of the Pichidé broke up into a swarm of reedy islets. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing.
“Koloft Swamps,” said Yerevats.
“Your people live there?”
“No, not by river. Further back. By river is all ujerö.” (He gave the Koloftou name for the quasi-human people of the planet, whom most Earthmen thought of simply as Krishnans because they were the dominant species.) “Robbers,” he added.
Borel, looking at the dark horizontal stripe of reeds between sky and water, wondered if he’d been wise to reject Yerevats’ advice to buy the full panoply of a garm or knight. Yerevats, he suspected, had been hoping for a fancy suit of armor for himself. Borel had turned down the idea on grounds of expense and weight; suppose one fell into the Pichidé in all that stove piping? Also, he now admitted to himself, he had succumbed to Terran prejudice against medieval Krishnan weapons, since one Earthly bomb could easily wipe out a whole Krishnan city and one gun mow down a whole army. Perhaps he hadn’t given enough weight to the fact that where he was going; no Earthly bombs or guns would be available.
Too late now for might-have-beens. Borel checked over the armament he had finally bought: a sword for himself, as much a badge of status as a protection. A cheap mace with a wooden handle and a star-shaped iron head for Yerevats. Sheath knives of general utility for both. Finally, a crossbow. Privately, Borel, no swashbuckler, hoped that any fighting they did would be at as long a range as possible.
He had tried drawing a longbow in the Outfitting Shop at Novorecife, but in his unskilled grip it bobbled about too much, and would have required more practice than he had time for.
Borel folded his cloak, laid it on his barracks bag, and sat down to go over his plans again. The only flaw he could see lay in the matter of getting an entree to the Order of Qarar after he arrived at Mishé. Once he’d made friends with members of the Brotherhood, the rest should be easy. By all accounts the Mikardanduma were natural-born suckers. But how to take that first step? He’d probably have to improvise after he got there.
Once he’d gotten over that first hurdle, his careful preparation and experience in rackets like this would see him through. And the best part would be that he’d have the laugh on old Abreu, who could do absolutely nothing about it. Since Borel considered honesty a sign of stupidity and since Abreu was not stupid for all his pompous ways, Borel assumed that Abreu must be out for what he could get like otherwise does, and that his moral attitudes and talk of principles were mere hypocritical pretense.
“Ao!” The shout of one of the raftmen broke into Borel’s reverie. The Krishnan was pointing off towards the right bank, where a boat was emerging from among the islets.
Yerevats jumped up, shading his eyes with his hairy hand. “Robbers!” he said.
“How can you tell from here?” asked Borel, a horrid fear making his heart pound.
“Just know. You see,” said the Koloftu, his tail twitching nervously. He looked appealingly at Borel. “Brave master kill robbers? No let them hurt us?”
“Sh-sure,” said Borel. He pulled out his sword halfway, looked at the blade, and shoved it back into its scabbard, more as a nervous gesture than anything else.
“Ohé!” said one of the raftmen. “Think you to fight the robbers?”
“I suppose so,” said Borel.
“No, you shall not! If we make no fight, they will slay only you for we are but poor men.”
“Is that so?” said Borel. The adrenalin being poured into his system made him contrary, and his voice rose. “So you think I’ll let my throat be cut quietly to save yours, huh? I’ll show you baghana!” The sword wheeped out of the scabbard, and the flat slapped the raftman on the side of the head, staggering him. “We’ll fight whether you like it or not! I’ll kill the first coward myself!” He was screaming at the three raftmen, now huddled together fearfully. “Make a barricade of the baggage! Move that stove forward!” He stood over them, shouting and swishing the air with his sword, until they had arranged the movables in a rough square.
“Now,” said Borel more calmly, “bring your poles and crouch down inside there. You too, Yerevats. I’ll try to hold them off with the bow. If they board us anyway, we’ll jump out and rush them when I give the signal. Understand?”
The boat had been slanting out from the shore on a course converging toward that of the raft. Now Borel, peering over the edge of his barricade, could make out the individuals in it. There was one in the bow, another in the stern, and the rest rowing—perhaps twenty in all.
“Is time to cock bow,” muttered Yerevats.
The others looked nervously over their shoulders as if wondering whether the river offered a better chance of safety than battle.
Borel said: “I wouldn’t try to swim ashore. You know the monsters of the Pichidé.” Which only made them look unhappier.
Borel put his foot into the stirrup at the muzzle end of the crossbow and cocked the device with both hands and a grunt. Then he opened the bandoleer he had bought with the bow and took out one of the bolts: an iron rod a span long, with a notch at one end, and at the other a flattened, diamond-shaped head with a twist to make the missile spin in its flight. He inserted the bolt into its groove.
The boat came closer and closer. The man in the front end called across the water: “Surrender!”
“Keep quiet,” said Borel softly to his companions. By now he was so keyed up that he was almost enjoying the excitement.
Again the man in the boat hailed: “Surrender and we’ll not hurt you! ’Tis only your goods we want!”
Still no reply from the raft.
“For the last time, give up, or we’ll torture you all to death!”
Borel shifted the crossbow to cover the man in the front. Damn, why hadn’t these gloops put sights on their gadgets? He’d taken a few practice shots at a piece of paper the day before and thought himself pretty good. Now, however, his target seemed to shrink to mosquito size every time he tried to draw a bead on it, and something must be shaking the raft to make the weapon waver so.
The man in the bow of the boat had produced an object like a small anchor with extra flukes, tied to the end of a rope. He held this dangling while the grunting oarsmen brought the boat swiftly towards the raft, then whirled it around his head.
Borel shut his eyes and jerked the trigger. The string snapped loudly and the stick kicked back against his shoulder. One of the raftmen whooped.
When Borel opened his eyes, the man in the front of the boat was no longer whirling the grapnel. Instead he was looking back towards the stern, where the man who had sat at the tiller had slumped down. The rowers were resting on their oars and jabbering excitedly.
“Great master hit robber captain!” said Yerevats. “Better cock bow again.”
Borel stood up to do so. Evidently, he had missed the man he aimed at and instead hit the man in the stern. However, he said nothing to disillusion his servant about his marksmanship.
The boat had reorganized and was coming on again, another robber having taken the place of the one at the tiller. This time there were two Krishnans in front, one with the grapnel and the other with a longbow.
“Keep yours heads down,” said Borel, and shot at the archer; the bolt flew far over the man’s head. Borel started to get up to reload, then realized that he’d be making a fine target. Could you cock these damned things sitting down? The archer let fly his shaft, which passed Borel’s head with a frightening whisht. Borel hastily found that he could cock his crossbow in a sitting position, albeit a little awkwardly. Another arrow thudded into the baggage.
Borel shed his military-style cap as too tempting a target and sighted on the boat again. Another miss, and the boat came closer. The archer was letting off three arrows to every one of Borel’s bolts, though Borel surmised that he was doing so to cover their approach rather than with hope of
hitting anybody.
Borel shot again; this time the bolt banged into the planking of the boat. The man with the grapnel was whirling it once more, and another arrow screeched past.
“Hey,” said Borel to one of the raftmen, “you with the hatchet! When the grapnel comes aboard, jump out and cut the rope. You other two, get ready to push the boat off with your poles.”
“But the arrows—” bleated the first man spoken to.
“I’ll take care of that,” said Borel with more confidence than he felt.
The archer had drawn another arrow but was holding it steady instead of releasing it. As the boat came within range of the grapnel, the man whirling it let go. It landed on the raft with a thump. Then the man who had thrown it began to pull it in hand over hand until one of the flukes caught in a log.
Borel looked around frantically for some way of the tempting the archer to shoot, since otherwise the first to stand up on the raft would be a sitting duck. He seized his cap and raised it above the edge of the barricade. Snap! and another arrow hissed by.
“Go to it!” shrieked Borel, and sighted on the archer. His crew hesitated. The archer reached back to his quiver for another arrow, and Borel, forcing himself to be calm, drew a bead on the man’s body and squeezed.
The man gave a loud animal cry, between a grunt and a scream, and doubled over.
“Go on!” yelled Borel again, raising the crossbow as if to beat the raftmen over the head with it. They sprang into life; one severed the rope with a chop of his hatchet while the other two poked at the boat with their poles.
The remaining man in the front of the boat dropped his rope, shouted something to the rowers, and bent to pick up a boathook. Borel shot at him, but let himself get excited and missed, though it was practically spitting distance. When the boathook caught in the logs, the man hauled the bow of the boat closer, while a few of the forward rowers stopped rowing to cluster around him with weapons ready.
In desperation, Borel dropped his crossbow, grabbed the end of the boathook, wrenched it out of the wood, and jerked it towards himself. The man on the other end held on a second too long and toppled into the water, still gripping the shaft. Borel pulled on it with some idea of wrenching it away and reversing it to spear the man in the water. However, the latter held on and was hauled to the edge of the raft, where he made as though to climb aboard. Meanwhile, the raftmen had again pushed the boat away with their poles, so that those who had been gathering themselves to jump across thought better of the idea.
Thump! Yerevats brought his mace down on the head of the man in the water, and the mop of green hair sank beneath the surface.
The raftmen were now yelling triumphantly in their own dialect. A robber, however, had picked up the longbow from the bottom of the boat and was fumbling with an arrow. Borel, recovering his crossbow, took pains with his next shot and made a hit just as the new archer let fly. The arrow went wild and the archer disappeared, to bob up again a second later cursing and holding his shoulder.
Borel cocked his crossbow again and aimed at the man in the boat. This time, however, instead of shooting, he simply pointed it at one man after another. Each man in turn tried to duck down behind the thwarts, so that organized rowing became impossible.
“Had enough?” called Borel.
The robbers were arguing again, until finally one called out: “All right, don’t shoot; we’ll let you go.” The oars resumed their regular rhythm, and the boat swung away towards the swamp. When it was safely out of range, some of the robbers yelled back threats and insults, which Borel could not understand at the distance.
The raftmen were slapping each other’s backs, shouting: “We’re good! Said I not we could lick a hundred robbers?” Yerevats babbled about his wonderful master.
Borel felt suddenly weak and shaky. If a mouse, or whatever they had on Krishna that corresponded to a mouse, were to climb aboard and squeak at him, he was sure he’d leap into the muddy Pichidé in sheer terror. However, it wouldn’t do to show that. With trembling hands, he inserted a cigarette into his long jeweled holder and lit it. Then he said: “Yerevats, my damned boots seem to have gotten scuffed. Give them a shine, will you?”
###
They tied up at Qou that evening to spend the night. Felix Borel paid off the raftmen, whom he overheard before he retired telling the innkeeper how they had (with some help from the Earthman) beaten off a hundred river pirates and slain scores. Next morning, he bade them good-bye as they pushed off down the river for Majbur at the mouth of the Pichidé, where they meant to sell their logs and catch a towboat back home.
Four long Krishnan days later, Borel was pacing the roof of his inn in Mishé. The capital of the Republic of Mikardand had proved a bigger city than he had expected. In the middle rose a sharp-edged mesalike hill surmounted by the great citadel of the Order of Qarar. The citadel frowned down upon Borel, who frowned right back as he cast and rejected one plan after another for penetrating not only the citadel but also the ruling caste whose stronghold it was.
He called: “Yerevats!”
“Yes, master?”
“The Garma Qararuma toil not, neither do they spin, do they?”
“Guardians work? No sir! Run country, protect common people from enemies and from each other. That enough, not?”
“Maybe, but that’s not what I’m after. How are these Guardians supported?”
“Collect taxes from common people.”
“I thought so. Who collects these taxes?”
“Squires of Order. Work for treasurer of Order.”
“Who’s he?” asked Borel.
“Is most noble garm Kubanan.”
“Where could I find the most noble Sir Kubanan?”
“If he in citadel, no can see. If in treasury office, can.”
“Where’s the treasury office?”
Yerevats waved vaguely. “That way. Master want go?”
“Right. Get out the buggy, will you?”
Yerevats disappeared, and presently they were rattling over the cobblestones towards the treasury office in the light one-aya four-wheeled carriage Borel had bought in Qou. It had occurred to him at the time that one pictured a gallant knight as pricking o’er the plain on his foaming steed rather than sitting comfortably behind the steed in a buggy. However, since the latter procedure promised to be pleasanter, and Yerevats knew how to drive, Borel had taken a chance on the Mikardanders’ prejudices.
The treasury office was in one of the big graceless rough-stone buildings that the Qararuma used as their official architectural style. The doorway was flanked by a pair of rampant stone yekis: the dominant carnivores of this part of the planet, something like a six-legged mink blown up to tiger size. Borel had had the wits scared out of him by hearing the roar of one on his drive down from Qou.
Borel gathered up his sword, got down from the buggy, assumed his loftiest expression, and asked the doorman: “Where do I find the receiver of taxes, my good man?”
In accordance with the doorman’s directions, he followed a hall in the building until he discovered a window in the side of the hall, behind which sat a man in the drab dress of the commoners of Mikardand.
Borel said: “I wish to see whether I owe the Republic any taxes. I don’t wish to discuss it with you, though; fetch your superior.”
The clerk scuttled off with a look compounded of fright and resentment. Presently, another face and torso appeared at the window. The torso was clad in the gay coat of a member of the Order of Qarar, but judging from the smallness of the dragonlike emblem on the chest, the man was only a squire or whatever you’d call the grade below the true garma.
“Oh, not you,” said Borel. “The head of the department.”
The squire frowned so that the antennae sprouting from between his brows crossed. “Who are you, anyhow?” he said. “The receiver of taxes am I. If you have anything to pay—”
“My dear fellow,” said Borel, “I’m not criticizing you, but as a past Grand Master of a
n Earthly Order and a member of several others, I’m not accustomed to dealing with underlings. You will kindly tell the head of your department that the garm Felix Borel is here.”
The man went oft shaking his head in a baffled manner. Presently, another man with a knight’s insignia stepped through a door into the corridor and advanced with hand outstretched.
“My dear sir!” he said. “Will you step into my chamber? ’Tis a pleasure extraordinary to meet a true knight from Earth. I knew not that such lived there; the Terrans who have come to Mikardand speak strange subversive doctrines of liberty and equality for the commonality—even those who claim the rank, like that Sir Erik Koskelainen. One can tell you’re a man of true quality.”
“Thank you,” said Borel. ;’I knew that one of the Garma Qararuma would know me as spiritually one of themselves, even though I belong to another race.”
The knight bowed. “And now what’s this about your wishing to pay taxes? When I first heard it, I believed it not; in all the history of the Republic, no man has ever offered to pay taxes of his own will.”
Borel smiled. “I didn’t say I actually wanted to pay them. But I’m new here and wanted to know my rights and obligations. That’s all. Better to get them straightened out at the start, don’t you think?”
“Yes—but—are you he who came hither from Qou but now?”
“Yes.”
“He who slew Usharian the river pirate and his lieutenant in battle on the Pichidé?”
Borel waved a deprecating hand. “That was nothing. One can’t let such rogues run loose, you know. I’d have wiped out the lot, but one can’t chase malefactors with a timber raft.”
The Qararu jumped up. “Then the reward is due you!”
“Reward?”
“Why, knew you not? A reward of ten thousand karda was lain on the head of Usharian for years! I must see about the verification of your claim . . .”
Borel, thinking quickly, said: “Don’t bother. I don’t really want it.”
The Continent Makers and Other Tales of the Viagens Page 15
