Trullion: Alastor 2262

by Jack Vance

  He went into the maroon tent. The sons stood arguing with Tingo, who was now making hysterical expostulations, pointing across the common. Vang Drosset came forth from the maroon tent, once more fully clad. He marched up to Tingo and cuffed her; she drew back bawling in anger. He came for her again; she seized a stout branch and stood her ground; Vang Drosset turned gloomily away. He went to look more closely at the campfire, bent his head sharply and saw embers and ashes where Glinnes had shifted the fire. He gave a hoarse call, audible to Glinnes in the tree. Jerking the tripod aside, he kicked the fire flying, and with his bare fingers tore up the iron plate. Then the clay block. Then the pottery jar. He looked within. He looked up at Ashmor and Harving, who stood by expectantly.

  Vang Drosset raised his arms high in a magnificent gesture of despair. He dashed the pot to the ground; he jumped up and down on the shards; he kicked the fire and sent the brands flying; he held aloft his knotted arms and raved curses to all directions of the compass.

  Now was the time to depart, thought Glinnes. He slipped down from the tree, stepped into his boat, and drove back to Rabendary Island. A highly satisfactory day. The Trevanyi garments had guarded his identity; the Drossets might suspect, but they could not know. At this moment all the Trevanyi of the region were suspect, and the Drossets would sleep little this night as they debated the culpability of each.

  Glinnes prepared himself a meal and ate out on the verandah. Afternoon became avness, that melancholy dying-time of day, when all the sky and far spaces became suffused with the color of watered milk.

  The chime of the telephone provided a sudden discord. Glinnes went within to find the face of Thammas Lord Gensifer looking forth from the screen. Glinnes touched the vision push button. “Good afternoon, Lord Gensifer.”

  “A good afternoon to you, Glinnes Hulden! Are you ready to play ussade? I don’t mean at this very instant, of course.”

  Glinnes responded with a cautious question of his own. “I take it your plans have matured?”

  “Yes. The Fleharish Gorgons are now organized and ready to begin practice. I have your name penciled in at right strike.”

  “And who is left strike?”

  Lord Gensifer looked down at his list.

  “A very promising young man by the name of Savat. You two should make a brilliant combination.”

  “Savat? I’ve never heard of him. Who are the wings?”

  “Lucho and Helsing?”

  “Hmm. None of these names are familiar. Are these the players you originally had in mind?”

  “Lucho, of course. As for the others—well, that list was always tentative, to be amended whenever something better could be arranged. As you well know, Glinnes, some of these established players are fairly inflexible. We’re better off with people willing and anxious to learn. Enthusiasm, zest, dedication! These are the qualities that make for winning!”

  “I see. Who else has signed up?”

  “Iskelatz and Wilmer Guff are the rovers—how does that sound? You won’t find two better rovers in the prefecture. The guards—Ramos is a crackerjack—and Pylan, who is also very good. Sinforetta and ‘Bump’ Candolf are not quite so mobile, but they are solid; no one will drive them aside. I’ll play captain and—”

  “Eh? What’s this? Did I hear you correctly?”

  Lord Gensifer frowned. “I’ll play captain,” he said in a measured voice. “And that more or less is the team, except for substitutes.”

  Glinnes was silent a moment or two. Then he asked, “What about the fund?”

  “The fund will be three thousand ozols,” said Lord Gensifer primly. “For the first few games we’ll play a conservative fifteen hundred ozols, at least until the team jells.”

  “I see. When and where will you practice?”

  “At Saurkash field, tomorrow morning. I take it then that you’ll definitely play with the Gorgons?”

  “I’ll certainly come down tomorrow and we’ll see how things go. But let me be candid, Lord Gensifer. A captain is the most important man on the team. He can make us or break us. We need an experienced captain. I doubt if you have that experience.”

  Lord Gensifer became haughty. “I have made a thorough study of the game. I’ve gone through Kalenshenko’s Hussade Tactics three times; I’ve mastered the Ordinary Hussade Manual; I’ve explored all the latest theories, such as Counterflow Principle, the Double Pyramid System, Overvallation—”

  “ “All this may be true, Lord Gensifer. Many people can theorize about the game, but the reflexes are ultimately important, and unless you’ve played a great deal—”

  Lord Gensifer said stiffly, “If you’ll do your best, everyone else will do theirs. Is there anything more?… At the fourth gong, then.” The screen went dead.

  Glinnes growled in dismay. For half a broken ozol he’d tell Lord Gensifer to play captain, forward, rover, guard, and sheirl together. Lord Gensifer as captain indeed! At least he had his money back, with compensation for the beating. Almost five thousand ozols: a tidy sum, which he ought to put in a safe place.

  Glinnes sealed the money in a pottery jar like that the Drossets had used. He buried it in the back yard.

  An hour later a boat issued from Ilfish Water and came across Ambal Broad. Within sat Vang Drosset and his two sons. As they passed the Rabendary dock, Vang Drosset rose to his feet and scrutinized the Hulden boat with eyes like needles. Glinnes had removed all the goods with which he had tempted Vang Drosset; the boat was undistinguishable from a hundred others. Glinnes sat on the verandah, feet on the rail. Vang Drosset and his sons looked from the boat to Glinnes, eyes full of suspicion; Glinnes returned the gaze impassively.

  The Drosset boat continued up Farwan Water, the Drossets muttering among themselves and looking back toward Glinnes. There went the men who had killed his brother, thought Glinnes.

  Chapter 10

  Lord Gensifer, wearing a new maroon and black uniform, stood on a bench and addressed his players. “This is an important day for all of us, and for the history of hussade in Jolany Prefecture! Today we start to mold the most efficient, adroit, and ruthless team ever to ravage the hussade fields of Merlank. Some of you are proficient already, with reputations; others are still unknown.”

  Glinnes, considering the fifteen men around him, reflected that the proportion of these two sorts was on the order of one in eight.

  “—but by dint of dedication, discipline, and sheer”—here Lord Gensifer used the word kercha’an: effort conducing to superhuman feats of strength and will—“we will sweep all before us! We’ll expose the fundament of every virgin between here and Port Jaime! We’ll carry booty home in buckets; we’ll be rich and famous, one and all!

  “But first the toil and sweat of preparation. I have diligently researched the theory of hussade; I know Kalenshenko word for word. Everyone agrees: defeat your opponent’s strength and you’ve got the gold ring in your grasp. That means we must out-leap and out-swing the best forwards around; we’ve got to tub the sternest guards of Jolany; we’ve got to out-think the craftiest strategists of Trullion!

  “Now to work. I want the forwards to criss-cross the tanks, buffing21 three procedures at each station. Just establish a rhythm, you forwards! The rovers will go through standard drill, and the guards as well. We’ve got to master the fundamentals! I’d like to think that instead of two rovers and four guards, we have six agile powerful rovers all over the back stations, capable at any time of ramming home the piston.” Lord Gensifer here alluded to the tactic of a strong team sweeping a weaker team ahead of it up the field. “All to work! Let’s drill like men inspired!”

  So the practice began, with Lord Gensifer running here and there, praising, criticizing, castigating, stimulating his team with shrill ki-yik-yik-yiks.

  Twenty minutes later Glinnes had gauged the quality of the team. Left wing Lucho and right rover Wilmer Guff had been components of that hypothetical team Lord Gensifer had proposed to Glinnes, and were both excellent players deft, sure, aggressi
ve. Left rover Iskelatz also seemed a sound player, if of a self-contained, even surly, disposition. Iskelatz clearly disliked strenuous practice and preferred to reserve his best energies for the game itself, a trait which almost immediately exasperated Lord Gensifer. Savat and right wing Helsing were young men, alert, active, but somewhat raw, and during the buff-drill Glinnes continually feinted them off balance. Guards Ramos, Pylan, and Sinforetta were, respectively, slow, inept, and overweight; only left middle guard “Bump” Candolf combined sufficient mass, strength, cleverness and agility to qualify as an able athlete. A hussade truism asserted that a poor forward might defeat a poor guard but a good guard would restrain a good forward. A team lived by its forwards and died by its guards so stated another aphorism of the game. Glinnes foresaw a number of long afternoons unless Lord Gensifer were able to strengthen his back-field.

  The Gorgons, then, in their present phase, fielded a fair front line, a sound center, and a weak back-field. Lord Gensifer’s capacity as captain was difficult to assess. The ideal captain, like the ideal rover, could play at any station of the field, though some captains, like old Neronavy of the Tanchinaros, never left the protection of their hanges.

  In regard to Lord Gensifer, Glinnes reserved judgment. He seemed quick and strong enough, if somewhat overweight and sluggish on the swings.

  Lord Gensifer uttered one of his ki-yik-yik-yiks. “You forwards there! Zest now, let’s see those feet twinkle; are you a quartet of bears? Glinnes, must you caress Savat so lovingly with your buff? If he can’t block you let him feel it! And you guards let’s see you prance! Knees bent, like angry animals! Remember, every time they take hold of that gold ring it costs us money… Better… Let’s run through a few plays. First the Center Jet Series from the the Lantoun System…”

  The team drilled for two hours in an amiable spirit, then halted for lunch at The Magic Tench. After lunch Lord Gensifer diagrammed a group of formations he had conceived himself, variations on the difficult Diagonal Sequences. “If we can master these patterns, we thrust irresistibly against both wings and rovers; then when they collapse inward we plunge down either the right or left land.”

  “All very well,” said Lucho, “but notice, you leave the wing lanes unprotected, and there’s not a feather to prevent a counter-plunge down our own outside lanes.”

  Lord Gensifer frowned. “The rovers must swing to the side in such a case. Timing here is essential.”

  The team ran rather languidly through Lord Gensifer’s deployments, for the warm time of day had arrived and all were tired after the morning’s efforts. Finally Lord Gensifer, half exasperated, half rueful, dismissed the team. “Tomorrow, same time; but come expecting a workout. Today was a vacation. I know only one way to field a team, and that’s drill!”

  Three weeks the Gorgons practiced, with uneven results. Certain of the players became bored; certain others growled, and muttered at Lord Gensifer’s chivvying. Glinnes considered Lord Gensifer’s repertory of plays far too complicated and chancy, he felt the back-field to be too weak to allow an effective attack. The rovers were forced to protect the guards, and the forwards were therefore limited in their range. Attrition took a toll. Left rover Iskelatz, who was competent but too casual to please Lord Gensifer, resigned from the team, as did right wing Helsing, in whom Glinnes discerned the potentialities for excellence. The replacements were both weaker men. Lord Gensifer dropped Pylan and Sinforetta, the two most sluggish guards, and recruited a pair only slightly better, both of whom, so Glinnes learned from Carbo Gilweg, had been unable to win places with the Saurkash Tanchinaros.

  Lord Gensifer entertained the team at Gensifer Manor and introduced the Gorgon sheirl, Zuranie Delcargo from the village Puzzlewater, so named for the nearby hot sulfur springs. Zuranie was pallidly pretty, if thin, and shy to the point of speechlessness. Her personality aroused Glinnes to wonder—what force or ambition could impel such a girl to risk public exposure? Whenever she was addressed, she jerked her head away so that long blonde hair fell across her face, and she spoke only three words during the course of the evening. She displayed not an inkling of sashei, that wild and gallant élan which inspires a team to transcend its theoretical limitations.

  Lord Gensifer took the occasion to announce the schedule of forthcoming games, the first of which would take place two weeks hence at Saurkash Stadium, against the Voulash Gannets. A day or two later Zuranie came to watch the practice. Rain had fallen during the morning and a raw wind blew out of the south. The players were glum and peevish. Lord Gensifer ran up and down the field like a great bumbling insect, expostulating, wheedling, crying “Ki-yik-yik-yik!” to no effect. Huddling from the wind beside the pump-man’s hut, Zuranie watched the sluggish maneuvers with foreboding and despondency. At last she made a timid motion to Lord Gensifer. He jogged across the field. “Yes, sheirl?”

  Zuranie spoke in a petulant voice: “Don’t call me sheirl; I don’t know why I ever thought I’d want to do this. Really! I could never never stand on that place, with all those people watching me. I think I would absolutely die. Please, Lord Gensifer, don’t be angry, but I simply can’t.”

  Lord Gensifer raised his eyes to the scudding gray clouds, not far overhead. “My dear Zuranie! Of course you’ll be with us! We play the Voulash Gannets in two days! You’ll be famous and glorified!”

  Zuranie made a helpless motion. “I don’t want to be a famous sheirl; I don’t want all my clothes pulled off.

  “That only happens to the losing sheirl,” Lord Gensifer pointed out. “Do you think the Gannets can beat us, with Tyran Lucho and Glinnes Hulden and me and Bump Candolf ranging the stations? We’ll sweep them back like chaff; we’ll tank them so often they’ll think they are fish!”

  Zuranie was only partially reassured. She gave a tremulous sigh and said no more. Lord Gensifer, at last understanding that no useful purpose could be served by prolonging the practice, called a halt. “Same time tomorrow,” he told the team. “We’ve got to put snap into our lateral movement, especially in the back court. You guards, you’ve got to range the field! This is hussade, not a tea party for you and your toy animals. Tomorrow at the fourth chime.”

  The Voulash Gannets were a young team lacking all reputation; the players seemed striplings. The Gannet captain was Denzel Warhound, a lanky tow-headed youth with the wise sly eyes of a mythical creature. The sheirl was a buxom round-faced girl with a flying mop of dark curls; in the pre-game march about the field she conducted herself with full-blooded enthusiasm, strutting, bouncing, waving her arms, and the Gannets loped along beside her, barely able to contain their nervous activity. By contrast, the Gorgons seemed stately and dour, with sheirl Zuranie a frail asthenic wraith. Her evident despair caused Lord Gensifer an exasperation he did not dare to express for fear of demoralizing her completely. “Brave girl; there’s a brave girl!” he declared as if consoling a sick animal. “It won’t be all that bad; you’ll see I’m right!” But Zuranie’s apprehensions were not dispelled.

  Today the Gorgons wore their maroon and black uniforms for the first time. The helmets were especially dramatic, molded of a dull-rose metalloid, with black fleurettes for cheek-pieces. Black spikes bristled from the scalps; the eyeholes cunningly simulated the pupils of great staring eyes; the noses split to become black plush maws, from which hung lank red tongues. Some of the team thought the costume extravagant; a few disliked the flapping tongues; most were apathetic. The Gannets wore a brown uniform with an orange helmet, distinguished only by a crest of green feathers. Contrasting the mettlesome Gannets with the splendid but sluggish Gorgons, Glinnes felt impelled to discuss tactics with Lord Gensifer.

  “Notice the Gannets if you will; they’re like colt kevals, full of vigor and nonsense. I’ve seen such teams before, and we can expect aggressive, even rash, play. Our job is to make them beat themselves. We’ll want to use our traps to cut off their forwards so that our guards and rovers can double on them. If we use our weight, we’ve got a chance to defeat them.”


  Lord Gensifer raised his eyebrows in displeasure. “A chance to defeat them? What nonsense is this? We’ll sweep! them up and down the field like a dog chasing chickens! We shouldn’t even be playing them except that we need the practice.”

  “Still, I advise a careful game. Let them make the mistakes, or they might make capital of ours.”

  “Bah, Glinnes; I believe you’re past your prime.”

  “To the extent that I’m not playing for fun. I want to earn money—nine thousand ozols, to be exact, and I want win.”

  “Do you think your need is unique?” demanded Lord Gensifer in a voice thick with rage. “How do you think I financed the treasure-box? Bought the uniforms? Paid team expenses? I drained myself bloodless.”

  “Very well,” said Glinnes. “You need money; I need money. So let’s win, by playing the game we’re best able to play.”

  “We’ll win, never fear!” declared Lord Gensifer, once again bluff and hearty. “Do you think -I’m a tyro? I know the game up one side and down the other. Now enough of this wailing; I declare, you’re as timid as Zuranie. Notice the crowd a good ten thousand people. That’ll add ozols to the booty!”22

  Glinnes nodded gloomily. “If we win.” He noticed a man sitting alone in a box at the bottom of the Elite tier; Lute Casagave, with binoculars and camera. The gear was not unusual; many devotees of the game recorded the denuding of the sheirl in music and image. Notable collections of such events existed. Nonetheless Glinnes was surprised to find in Lute Casagave so lively an interest in hussade. He seemed not the type for frivolity.

  The field judge went to the microphone; the music dwindled away; a hush came over the crowd. “Sportfolk of Saurkash and Jolany Prefecture! Today a match between the gallant Voulash Gannets, and their sheirl Baroba Felice, and the indomitable Gorgons of Thammas Lord Gensifer, with the lovely sheirl Zuranie Delcargo! The teams pledge the inviolable dignity of their sheirls with all their valor and two treasures of fifteen hundred ozols. May the winners enjoy glory and the losers take pride in their fortitude and the tragic purity of their sheirl! Captains, approach!”