“A question, good Lenti! As behooves our knightly prerogatives: from whence were your own spurs won?”
I knew, so I told him. “From the sea battles off Reen in Ferlach,” I said. “That was three years ago, and we fought off the raiders of the Seligs, from the isles of the river-sea. I have since”—I smiled wryly—”been bloody bored with distaff and gog-pen.”
“Distaff, you say, sir?” the princess interjected hotly. “Are you married, then?”
“Nay, my lady.” I laughed. “I but speak of my mother and the rigors of the household she runs. She has forced me, betimes, to milk nine gogs in a row as a help to the serving wenches.”
The princess smiled and blushed—and it is possible to know this because though the fur of the body, short, soft, and lying flat upon the skin, is fairly consistent, it fades somewhat at breast and throat and face so that there is but a fine down to note its continuance.
Rawl laughed, too, and I made note of his alertness. Then he said, “I have heard of your sea battle, my lord, and that it was hard, with more than one engagement. I have heard something, too, of your insignia, which I cannot quite remember.”
“Dubot!” the princess exclaimed. She referred to a small, rather silly animal. “It is the heraldry of the Collin, the greatest of chieftains. Four families claim his blood and his blazonry in one form or another—but I recall not yours, Sir Lenti,” she said to me.
She said this last sharply, and turned to me with bold questions in her blue eyes. As an Adjuster, however, I knew the fine points of her history better than she.
“There are six families, my lady,” I explained. “We regard our claim as of the first … since he of whom we speak, the Great Collin. was born in the manor of our village some five hundred years ago. I might add that he was born where I, too, was born.”
They looked at me strangely then, and with good reason. For the Collin was legend, as was Earth’s El Cid, Arthur Pendragon, Quetzalcoatl, and Kim II Sung… . All had been of great service to their people, and all were to return in the hour of the indigenous nation’s greatest peril. …
The princess said finally, against a background of noise from four quarreling dottles, “Would you then choose his actual name, sirrah?”
“I have no such illusions, my lady.” “Perhaps we could use a Collin now,” Rawl put in, as I had hoped he would.
Then Dame Malion’s voice came as if from far away. “Hey!” she said. “He is not the Collin. But this I seem to know. He is more of the Collin now than any other may ever be. This is so that you use him thusly.” She stared hard at the princess, then turned away.
The fighting dottles were roaring at this point, and the princess arose and pointed a finger and shouted at the most belligerent one so that it ceased its brawling and sneaked off, ashamed, to hide itself in the herd.
“I repeat,” Rawl said strongly, “Marack could use the Collin now! How say you, Sir Lenti? Let us present you as his potential. Great Ormon, man! We need but tell your story straight.”
“Sir Fergis,” I said with feigned severity, “to even think thusly makes mock of the Collin.”
“Not so.” The princess spoke up. “If we present you, and you take his name in good faith—and for no evil or self-gain —there is then no lack of honor.”
“But for my small deeds?” I asked. “My lady, please!” But there was no stopping her, the young knight, or the semi-ethereal dame Malion. A few more minutes of conversation and the idea of presenting me to the court of King Caronne as someone possibly imbued with the powers of their legendary hero, the Collin, became quite real. ” ‘Tis a sacrilege,” I said, baiting them more. “What does it matter?” Rawl insisted firmly. “If you fall in the first battle, Marack at least will have had a hero around which to rally.”
“I do not like it,” I said stubbornly.
“What matter your likes,” the princess exclaimed. “There is much at stake, and if my father accepts the idea, so be it, sirrah!” Her voice had turned haughty so that I smiled at her in such a way that she soon smiled back. And then I agreed … especially since the idea was mine in the first place.
Historically the situation then and now was similar—except that now, what with the magic of the Kaleen, it was worse. The original Collin had been instrumental in defeating the invading forces of Selig who, at that time, had conquered all the lands to the north of the river-sea so that only a section of Marack itself .continued free. His personal feats of arms had become like the greatest thing since the invention of Flegian sviss. … I agreed again and we mounted our dottles with the intention of developing the details as to just how we would do this thing on the still long voyage home. Barring, of course, any new attempt by Om and the sorcery of Elioseen to prevent us.
As we approached the highway, or cart path, the princess exclaimed sharply and dashed to the fore, her small heels beating against the ribs^of her dottle. For brief seconds I was unable to see the reason for her excitement. But when she halted within a few feet of the cart path, all became clear. For there, sitting upon an upright stone marker, grimy and smudged and with a variety of leaves and whatever stuck to his fur, was the Pug-Boo. He had a most happy smile on his little round face. And as the princess dismounted to gather him up into her arms with sundry croonings of Hooli, you naughty-naughty … where have you been, you wicked Hooli?” he winked at me over her shoulder. He actually winked at me.
Then we were off—the princess, Dame Malion, myself and Rawl, who looked defiantly over his shoulder from time to time, and our eighteen happy, cavorting dottles. I played with the stones of my belt and wondered whatever happened to the sixth hour, Greenwich time and whether the town and castle of Glagmaron, the land of Marack, and the whole damn planet, for that matter, was worth the proverbial candle… . Looking beyond Dame Malion to the petite figure of Murie Nigaard, I knew indubitably that it was.
The great sun Fomalhaut blazed away.
Camelot-Fregis had a rotation period of twenty-six hours. The extra sunlight contributed greatly to the accumulated heat of the day. though this was offset by the extra hours of night The extremes of noon and midnight were more pronounced, however. This held true for the entire year in that since Camelot’s orbit was some 283 million miles from nuclear center, the four seasons encompassed 490 days.
All this provided, actually, for a generally temperate climate in the northern and southern hemispheres. Marack was to the north, Om to the south. The tropical zone covered only a part of Om, its extreme southern section and the Dark Lands beyond being temperate, too. Frigid zones existed to the north and south, directly below the two ice caps which resembled those of Terra as, indeed, did Fregis-Camelot itself in size and density.
Kriloy, Ragan, and I had remarked upon this similarity aboard the Deneb-3, when the starship had warped into the total aegis of the Fomalhaut system.
There were sixteen planets in all, two with multicolored rings. Camelot was a blue-green—white with clouds—water world. Its earth was distinct from its seas, spiraling around the body of the planet from pole to pole. It had gleamed like an opaline jewel against the background of star cluster and yawning void. But Fomalhaut was a binary; at a distance of two degrees, but within the same parallax, a companion star, Fomalhaut II, shone as a great blue flame, brighter than all the planets of the system. Fomalhaut II possessed but three planets, one of which a cursory scanning had long ago shown as having been ravaged by some nuclear holocaust. Whatever the life-form in past millennia, it was long since dead—obliterated, to be precise.
The heat mounted. Sweat ran through the black mink hairs of my chest and waist We rode on in silence until finally I asked what had happened to the bearded one I had flattened at our first meeting—who was he, who was the maid, and where did they think the both of them had gone? I also questioned them as to the stated “ban of travel” about which the princess had cautioned me, and why the Pug-Boo had not been with us at Castle-Gortfin… .
My first adversary, Rawl explaine
d, was Fon Tweel, Kolb (lord) of Bist, a province of Marack. He had been with the princess simply because he had court seniority. Fancying himself a suitor, he had demanded the right to act as protector of the princess for the short distance of her journey.
Murie then let me know by certain gestures, frowns, and moues that she considered Lord Fon Tweel a bore and a dubot. As for the maid … well, she was daughter to the onus Felm of Krabash, another of Marack’s provinces. She was lady-in-waiting to Murie’s mother, Queen Tyndil. Where the maid and knight had gone, as far as they were concerned, was anybody’s guess. And further, I gathered by Murie’s disinterest that she cared not a Terran fig. The ban on travel was simply explained. This was late spring, a time of a gathering of young knights from across the land—all to meet in Glagmaron, and all to go off to the wars. They would “blood” themselves, as it were, in Gheese, Ferlach, Great Ortmund, Kelb—wherever, in fact, there was blood to be shed. The ban on travel merely protected a knowledge of their numbers from wandering spies of the above-mentioned countries. As to the Pug-Boo’s reappearance, they were at a loss there, too. So I let it pass for the moment.
Silence reigned again, and we continued on beneath a sheltering bower of enormous deciduous trees, with here and there a clump of, conifers alive with birds of varied size and hue. Dainty antelope-type ruminants and sundry small animals preened, gawked, and peered at us from their particular bit of turf, each indicating a most beautiful and balanced ecology.
The sixth hour, Greenwich. My Galactic chronometer, imbedded in one of the jewels of my left wrist-band, told me that it was now the twelfth hour. The question I asked myself was “How many sixth hours had passed me by while I lay in the dungeons of Gortfin?”
At times I rode side by side with the princess and Rawl, and at times by myself. I had become quite aware of her physically, which, as was my wont, I made no effort to conceal. Her reaction to this was a smug satisfaction, together with a series of purple-eyed side-glances to make sure she had conclusively “hooked” me. That she so readily assumed me to be the potential, sweating facsimile of an enamored swain—a slave to her softly furred tummy and her round little bottom— was something of a letdown. I could only conclude that suitors at Glagmaron had accustomed her to think in this way so that what I sensed was simply conditioned reflex.
I was keenly conscious of the Pug-Boo, too. The reason being that whenever he saw that I alone was watching, he would deliberately wriggle his fat little ears, roll his eyes counterclockwise, or wrinkle his nose in a series of rabbit twitches. Once he slitted his eyes and stared at me—just stared. Almost instantly I had the spine-chilling sensation of having been weighed, judged, and filed in some strange Pug-Boo cabinet of the mind.
Another rather outlandish phenomenon was that the dottles, thought they seemed to love all of us to distraction (I wondered at the time if they were also as friendly to Yorns and such), they loved the Pug-Boo most of all. This was made evident when from time to time one of those closest to the Boo would give him a big kiss with a sloppy, blubbery, wet muzzle, and promptly prance off in a veritable frenzy of animal ecstasy.
Murie and Rawl were right. The dottles could seemingly sustain a fast gallop forever. The mud and wet sand from their great paws on the cart path was a constant rain around us. The heat continued to rise. The clouds still hung low. And, though I knew this last was but a tentative state of affairs, I was thankful for its illusion of protection.
There was no pursuit, however. Indeed, by late afternoon I was ready to assume that there would be none.
At times we passed from deep forest to broad meadow, with here and there a cluster of bright-eyed peasants to view us as we thundered by on the “great road.” There were even a few rough-hewn bridges to cross, where I thought of trolls and sundry goblins which ,Camelot might just be capable of producing.
Just before dusk, while we looked for a woodgirt meadow in which to spend the night, we came to another small bridge. Beyond it was the very meadow we sought; the idea being, according to Rawl, that in a meadow we could ring ourselves with dottles as protection against the night. The dottles would simultaneously be able to rest and to browse.
This meadow, however, was already occupied.
Two tents were up, topped with heraldic pennons that fluttered in the late afternoon breeze. A dozen dottles were grazing and at least four men-at-arms could be seen lolling before the tents. At our approach they sprang to their feet, called to us to halt, then yelled to someone inside the tents.
Almost instantly two figures came out to confront us, both in light body armor. Two dottles, saddled and waiting, were brought to them. They mounted and rode briskly toward us.
One of them was slender and small, the other huge to the point of being gigantic. We remained on our side of the bridge and in line—myself, the princess and Rawl, and the good dame Malion to the rear.
They pulled to a halt just opposite us, and with a great flourish of hardware. The giant’s booming voice sounded over the meadow: “Oh kerls,” he shouted. “Oh, oafs or sorry sword-hands that you be—and you must needs be something since you dare ride noble dottles—we do now and hereby bar your path. We are of a mind to play flats, ere the sun sets. And I confess that ‘tis my intention to gog-tie you for the future amusement of my good host-to-be, his majesty. King Caronne.” At this point the big man ceased his shouting and made several circles upon his chest as obeisance to Ormon and explained this by yelling further: “We, of course, do seek the favor of Great Ormon in our venture, as no doubt do you. Therefore, oh kerls, it is meet that you join us in prayer— which I, of course, will lead.”
With this last statement the man genuflected by bowing from the saddle, and began some chanting monotone in which he truly expected us to join.
We didn’t. But he kept at it anyway, filling the meadow with an interminable list of Camelot’s saints and aves. It seemed after a while, since he was intent upon his worship, that he had forgotten our existence altogether.
At one point, while he shouted paeans to the sky, the female dottle supporting the smaller of the two riders pranced daintily, showing off, as it were, to our quietly watching herd. Its rider was hard put to hold it in check.
I was secretly amused, and I remained silent through it all.
But the princess Murie Nigaard was of a different breed. She had watched me through most of the praying and prancing. And since I made no move, she herself took up the cudgel. She yelled angrily above the booming aves, “Oh, stay your prayers for but one single second, pious oaf—” her tone was one of pure sarcasm—”and you will know and instantly that those you bar from the king’s road, and make reference to as kerls, are none other than the king’s daughter and her knight protectors.”
At this outburst the huge one stopped, cut off in mid-ave-Wimbily. (Wimbily being she who sits at Ormon’s right hand and is the mother of Harris of the Trinity.) He sputtered and advanced to the bridge peering and shading his eyes against the orb of fast-setting Fomalhaut. It was at that point that he made his second and most foolish blunder. He concluded, after looking us over, that the cloaked figure of Dame Malion was the princess, while Murie was simply a part of the escort.
“Ho!” he yelled. “My greetings then to the most demure and ladylike daughter of the king, for she seems of royal demeanor indeed, while you, young sir,” he was directing his words to Murie, “are an impious loudmouth. Great Ormon is not unaware,” he cautioned, “of how you slight him, and the Gods, generally, to whom we all—and this is written—for each and every second of the day and night do owe our lives, our goods, our families’ health—our—”
“Cease, idiot!” Murie fairly screamed. “I am the princess!” She outshouted the giant in her anger, which was a thing to see and hear. “I am the princess, Sir Knight. And more for your dull-witted arrogance than for your impertinence, we shall deign to play the flats with you… . Would you gog-tie others? Indeed! Sirrah! Well, we shall see.”
With that she gestured m
ost imperiously and I, her chainpion, rode forward on cue, for there seemed not the slightest doubt in the princess’s mind that I would do that. And I would not let her down.
The game of flats was but another form of dueling, designed as a “sport” to limit death wounds. Remembered research told me, however, that this “sport”—used when no jousting spears or suit armor was available—had contributed to many a broken head, spine, or limb. For flats meant simply the flat of the sword instead of the edge.
The four men-at-arms had mounted, too. They were now sitting their dottles behind the giant and his lithe companion.
At the bridge’s center I halted. And, as if to confound the princess and show her just who, actually, was head man, I did not draw my sword. Instead I addressed the big man deliberately. “Since it is quite obvious, sirrah,” I said, “that you have achieved great error by a lack of knowledge, it may be that a simple apology from you to our princess will suffice. This tactic will also save your bones for future battles. For I would not needlessly harm a liege of our lord in these times when all men are needed.”
“Apology? Apology!”
A World Called Camelot Page 4
