by David Weber
The ingrained habits of extreme caution had become a matter of simple reflex to him during the years of his servitude, and he had no intention of risking any more than he must upon the unproven assumption that there was anywhere at all that Computer couldn't hear him. At the same time, however, he knew there was no place aboard ship where he couldn't be overheard, which meant that the only time he felt even remotely safe discussing dangerous matters was during their periods of encampment.
Although even then, he reflected, the only person with whom he truly discussed them was Matilda.
"Yes, I'm certain," he said at last, meeting her blue eyes as he answered her question. God, she's beautiful, he thought with a familiar sense of wonder and awe.
"I don't think he realizes he revealed so much," he went on after a moment, raising a wine goblet to hide the movement of his lips and speaking very quietly, "but I'm certain of it. More certain than I like."
"But surely there's no longer any doubt that we truly are as valuable to his guild as he's suggested," Matilda pointed out. "You've served him far better than even he could ever have imagined you might, with wit and counsel as much as with weapons. He himself has admitted as much to you, and, like you, I very much doubt that he was ever the sort to waste unmeant praise upon someone he considers so completely his inferior out of a sense of courtesy. Whatever else his guild may be, surely it would not lightly discard a tool whose worth it holds so high."
"Um." Sir George set the goblet aside, then stretched in an ostentatious yawn. He smiled at his wife and moved to lay his head in her lap, smiling up at her as she tickled the tip of his nose with a stalk of local grass. To the casual eye, they were but two people—people miraculously young and comely—in love, but his eyes were serious as he gazed up at her.
"We are valuable," he agreed, "but we're also the very thing you just called us: a tool. You've spent more time with him than almost any of our other people, love, because of the times he's `invited' both of us to dinner or the like. But not even you have spent anything approaching the number of hours with him that I have. I wish I hadn't spent them, but I have. And in the spending, I've learned that our worst fears of how he views us have actually fallen short of the mark. I doubt that he could be considered `cruel' by his own standards, but we fall outside those standards. We may be valuable for what we've achieved for him and his guild, but we aren't people to him. We have absolutely no value to him except as tools. He sees us as we might see a horse, or a cow: as things to be used for his purposes and discarded—or slaughtered—if they're no longer useful. Certainly he regards me, for all his praise when I accomplish his goals for him, with less affection than I hold for Satan!"
"Because we aren't of his kind?" Matilda murmured, her expression troubled. She and Sir George had touched upon this topic before often enough, both in their private conversations with one another and in guarded, cautious circumstances with other members of the baron's council. Nothing that her husband had just said came as a true surprise, yet this was the most frankly he had ever expressed it, and his voice had been harsh.
"In part, perhaps," he said after a moment in reply to her question, "but I think not entirely. At least he loves to boast, and I've gleaned what bits and pieces I can from his bragging. As nearly as I can tell, there are several kinds of creatures in the `Federation' of which he speaks. His own kind is but one sort of them, and there are great physical differences between them. But they seem much alike in spirit and outlook. All consider themselves `advanced' because of the machines and other devices they build and control, just as they consider us `primitives' because we lack the knowledge to construct such devices. And to the Federation, primitives are less than French serfs. As primitives, we have no rights, no value, except as tools and property. We aren't remotely their equals, and most of them wouldn't so much as blink at the thought of killing us all. So if our value in the field should suddenly find itself outweighed by the potential discovery that the `Commander's' guild has violated a Federation edict—"
He shrugged, and she nodded unhappily, glorious eyes dark. He felt the fear she tried to hide and smiled ruefully as he reached to pat her knee.
"Forgive me, dear heart. I shouldn't have burdened you with the thought."
"Nonsense!" She laid a slim, strong and hand across his mouth and shook her head fiercely. "I'm your wife, and if Father erred in abetting my deplorable taste for books and philosophy, at least my vices have left me with a mind willing to consider even your most preposterous theories, my love. And you, Sir George Wincaster, are neither Saint Michael nor God Himself to carry all the weight of our fate upon your shoulders alone. So if Timothy or I, or even Sir Richard, can help by listening and allowing you to test those same preposterous theories upon us, then it would be stupid for you to hide your fears from us lest you `burden' me with them!"
"Perhaps," he agreed, reaching up to caress the side of her face. She leaned down to kiss him, and he savored the taste of her lips. She broke the kiss and started to say something more, but he shook his head and drew her gently down beside him, pillowing her head on his shoulder as they lay on the cushions, gazing up at the sky.
She accepted his unspoken injunction to change the subject and began to talk more lightly of their children—first of Edward, and then of the four younger children born to them aboard their masters' ship. As far as Matilda was concerned, that was the greatest wonder of all after her acceptance of her barrenness back in Lancaster, and her children were the one unblemished joy of their captivity. They were Sir George's, as well, and so he listened with smiling, tender attentiveness, gazing at her face and never once, by even so much as a glance, acknowledged the presence of the dragon-man who had drifted out of the spidery trees. The creature paused for a long moment near the awning under which the baron and his lady lay. It stood there, as if listening intently, and then, as slowly and silently as it had come, it drifted back into the forest and was gone.
* * *
The demon-jester seldom appeared among the men of "his" army, but he continued to make a point of summoning them all before him after they'd won yet another victory for his guild. In turn, Sir George and his officers made a point of seeing to it that none of those men ever revealed how they felt about those summonings, for the "Commander" would have reacted poorly to their scorn and soul-deep anger. The baron was still unable to decide how even the demon-jester could be so utterly ignorant of the inmost natures of the men who fought and died for him because they had no choice, but that he was seemed undeniable. Who but a fool who knew nothing of Englishmen would appear before those he'd stolen from their homes as his slaves to praise them for their efforts in his behalf? To tell them how well they had served the guild they'd come to hate with all their hearts and souls? To promise them as the "reward" for their "valor" and "loyalty" the privilege of seeing their own wives and children?
Yet that was precisely what the demon-jester had done on other occasions, and it was what he did today. Usually, he summoned them to assemble in the portion of the starship to which they were confined, but sometimes, as today, he came to them aboard his air car. Now the car floated perhaps ten feet in the air above the flattened, dusty grass of the exercise area between the lander and the main encampment, surrounded protectively by a dozen dragon-men. Two score of armored wart-faces stood in a stolid line between the vehicle and the assembled Englishmen, as well, watching frog-eyed through the slots in their visors, and Sir George gritted his own teeth until his jaw muscles ached as that piping, emotionless voice wound its monotonous way through the endless monologue. He felt the invisible fury rising from his men like smoke and marveled once more that any creature whose kind could build wonders like the ship and all its marvelous servitors could be so stupid.
"... reward you for your courage and hardihood," the piping voice went on. "I salute your loyalty and bravery, which have once more carried our guild's banner to victory, and I hope to grant you the rewards you so richly deserve in the very near future. In
the meantime, we—"
"Reward I deserve, hey?" Rolf Grayhame muttered. He stood beside Sir George, his voice a thread, leaking from the side of his fiercely moustachioed lips. "Only one reward I want, My Lord, and that's a clean shot. Just one."
Sir George elbowed the archer sharply, and Grayhame closed his mouth with an apologetic glower. He knew Sir George's orders as well as any, but like his baron, he felt only contempt for the demon-jester. Well, that and raw hatred. Walter Skinnet had been his friend, and the burly archer would never forget the day of his death. The demon-jester was far from the first arrogant or heedlessly cruel lordling Grayhame had seen in his career, but he was arguably the stupidest. Secure in the superiority of his mechanisms and guards though he might be, he was still witless enough to infuriate fighting men by dragging them out to hear this sort of crap. Not even a Frenchman was that stupid!
"Sorry, My Lord," the archer captain muttered. "Shouldn't have said it. But not even a Scot would—"
He clamped his jaw again, and Sir George gave him a stern look that was only slightly flawed by the smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. That small lip twitch emboldened Grayhame, and his gray-green eyes glinted for just a moment. Then he shrugged his shoulders apologetically and returned his attention to the "Commander."
"... and so we will spend several more of your weeks here," the demon-jester was saying. "The craven curs you have whipped to their kennels will offer no threat," he seemed completely oblivious to how foolish his rhetoric sounded to human ears, especially delivered in his piping, emotionless voice, "and you and your mates and children will have that time to enjoy the sunlight and fresh air you relish so greatly. Go now. Return to your families, secure in the knowledge that you are valued and treasured by our guild."
* * *
Sir George started to lead his men back to their pavilions when the demon-jester dismissed them, but a gesture from the chunky little creature stopped him. Grayhame, Howice, and Maynton paused as well, their eyes meeting Sir George's questioningly, but a tiny shake of his head sent them on after the others. He watched them leave, then turned to his master.
"Yes, Commander?"
"Not all of this planet's primitives have been sufficiently cowed by your defeat of the local clans," the demon-jester said. "I suppose that by now I should be accustomed to the ability of such aborigines to persistently deny the inescapable proof of their own inferiority. Like so many other primitives, these appear able to grasp that their local colleagues' forces have been utterly destroyed, but they do not seem to believe the same could be done to their own. Apparently they feel that those you have defeated were poorly led and motivated... unlike, of course, their own warriors. While cautious, they have not yet accepted that they have no choice but to do as we bid them or be destroyed in their separate turns."
He paused, his three-eyed gaze fixed on Sir George's face, and the human tried to hide his dismay. Not from concern over what might happen to his own men, but because the thought of yet again butchering still more of the local natives for the benefit of the demon-jester's guild sickened him.
"I see," he said at last, and wondered how he could diplomatically suggest that the demon-jester might wish to draw upon his own negotiating expertise to convince the locals of their helplessness without still more bloodshed. "Will it be necessary for us to destroy their forces in the field, as well?" he asked after a moment.
"It may," the demon-jester replied in that emotionless voice, "but I hope to avoid that. We would be forced to recall you all aboard the ship and use the landers to transport your troops into reach of their warriors. That would be inconvenient. Worse, it might actually encourage them to resist. Such primitive species have exhibited similar behavior in the past, particularly when they believe their numbers are greatly superior. My own analysis suggests that moving the lander from point to point, thus emphasizing the fact that we have but one field force, and that it consists of but a limited number of you English, might encourage some among them to overestimate their ability to resist us. In the end, of course, they would be proven wrong, but teaching them that lesson might require us to spend much longer on this single world than my superiors would like."
"I see," Sir George repeated, and this time he truly did.
He found it humorous, in a black, bitter sort of way, to hear the demon-jester lecturing him on how stubborn "primitives" could be. As if the fatuous little creature had had any grasp of the complexities involved in using a thousand bowmen and men-at-arms to conquer entire worlds before Sir George explained them to him! Yet for all the situation's biting irony, he understood precisely why the demon-jester preferred to spend no more time here than he must. Even before he'd fallen into the hands of the "Commander's" guild, Sir George, too, had sometimes found himself looking over his shoulder at superiors who insisted that he accomplish his tasks with near-impossible speed. Not that understanding the "Commander's" quandary woke any particular sympathy within him.
"No doubt you do," the demon-jester replied. "I hope, however, to avoid that necessity by demonstrating their inferiority to them. Accordingly, I have summoned all of the principal chieftains from within reasonable travel distance from our current location. They will begin arriving within the next two local days, and all should be here within no more than twelve. While your bows are clumsy and primitive in the extreme compared to proper small arms, the locals have nothing which can compare to them in range and rate of fire. When the chieftains arrive, you will demonstrate this fact to them, and the leaders of the clans you have already defeated will explain to them how your weapons allowed you to annihilate their own troops. With this evidence of their inferiority incontrovertibly demonstrated before their own eyes, they should be forced to admit that they cannot, in fact, withstand you in open combat and so have no choice but to accept my terms."
He paused once more, waiting until Sir George nodded.
"Very well. I will leave the details of the demonstration up to you. Be prepared to describe them to me in two days' time."
The demon-jester turned his air car away without another word, and most of his dragon-man guards closed in around him, but Sir George ignored the alien creatures as he fixed hot eyes on the "Commander's" arrogant back while the wart-faces fell in behind the demon-jester and his entourage.
Plan a demonstration, is it? Sir George thought venomously. Jesu, but I know what I'd like to use as a target! The sight of your precious hide sprouting arrows like peacock feathers ought to impress the "local lordlings" no end!
He snorted bitterly at the thought, then drew a deep breath and turned on his heel, only to pause in surprise. A single dragon-man had remained behind, and now the towering alien looked down at the baron, then gestured for the human to accompany him from the assembly area. The creature obviously intended to escort him back to his own pavilion—no doubt to ensure that he got into no mischief along the way. That had never happened before, yet Sir George saw no choice but to obey the gesture.
Obedience didn't come without a fresh flicker of anger, yet he knew there was no point in resenting the dragon-man. The silent guard was undoubtedly only following his own orders, and Sir George tried to put his emotions aside as the dragon-man steered him back towards the encampment as if he were incapable of finding his way home without a keeper.
The two of them passed the screen of shrubbery separating the English camp from the assembly area, and Sir George smiled as he caught sight of Matilda, waiting for him. He raised his hand and opened his mouth to call her name...
... and found himself lying on the ground with no memory at all of how he had gotten there.
He blinked, head swimming, and peered up as a hand stroked his brow anxiously. Matilda's worried face peered down at him, and beyond her he saw Father Timothy, Dickon Yardley, Sir Richard, Rolf Grayhame, and a dozen others. And, to his immense surprise, he saw the dragon-man, as well, still standing behind the circle of far shorter humans and gazing down at him over their heads.
"My love?" Matilda's voice was taut with anxiety, and he blinked again, forcing his eyes to focus on her face. "What happened?" she demanded.
"I—" He blinked a third time and shook the head he now realized lay in her lap. It seemed to be still attached to his shoulders, and his mouth quirked in a small, wry smile.
"I have no idea," he admitted. "I'd hoped that perhaps you might be able to tell me that!"
Her worried expression eased a bit at his teasing tone, but it was her turn to shake her head.
"Would that I could," she told him, her voice far more serious than his had been. "You simply stepped around the bushes there and raised your hand, then collapsed. And—" despite herself, her voice quivered just a bit "—lay like one dead for the better part of a quarter-hour."
She looked anxiously up at Yardley, who shrugged.
"It's as Her Ladyship says, My Lord," the surgeon told him. Yardley lacked the training and miraculous devices of the Physician, but he'd always been an excellent field surgeon, and he'd been given more opportunities to learn his craft than any other human battle surgeon the baron had ever known. Now he shook his head.
"Oh, she exaggerates a little. You were scarcely `like one dead'—I fear we've seen all too many of those, have we not?" He smiled grimly, and one or two of the others chuckled as they recalled men, like Yardley himself, who most certainly had lain "like one dead."
"Your breathing was deeper than usual," the surgeon continued after a moment, "yet not dangerously so, and your pulse was steady. But for the fact that we couldn't wake you, you might simply have been soundly asleep. Have you no memory of having tripped or fallen?"
