If I Pay Thee Not in Gold

by Piers Anthony

  And that was a pity, for although the Mazonites had many faults, they also had many virtues, particularly when it came to martial matters. Ware had been able to advise her on how best to handle the men-who were, after all, trained in the Mazonite-army way of doing things when it came to any kind of organized defenses and moving in hostile territory. As one of the men had once said, dryly, there were three ways of doing things: “the right way, the wrong way, and the army way.” When Ware had advised her to deviate from the things that were ingrained in their thinking, he had also been able to give her the best way to explain the situation to them in terms that they would understand and agree with. Faro, who had not had Mazonite military training at all, could not. His training had been for the arena, a rather different matter. Arena fighters were always single, trusting no one. She had found that, on the whole, it was better to explain things to the men and then give them their orders; it made it seem as if she was being something other than arbitrary. Perhaps that would not have worked in the army, but this was not the army, and she was not a trained commander.

  Still, she managed to muddle through, finding ways to explain why they were camping in low areas rather than on the high ground, and why it was best for the scouts to keep below the level of the grass when checking over the top of a ridge. She made some mistakes-but they managed to pass an entire week, and come out of the grasslands into more wooded country.

  They also managed to avoid some obvious trouble- three separate sets of armed men, all looking for something. Xylina did not want to take the chance that these hunters might be hunting for her and her men.

  They were all strange in one way or another. One of the sets was mounted on horses, one on bizarre lizard-like creatures, and one set of men rode on wheeled carts that propelled themselves across the grasslands by some kind of magic. It was the third set she feared the most, for she could not tell what kind of weapons they bore-they carried things that might have been crossbows and spears, but were of no make she recognized. Perhaps only Ware would have known what such weaponry could do, but she was not going to find out the hard way.

  Her nights were tortured, filled with longing; her body ached with needs newly-discovered. And deep in the lonely darkness, she found herself wondering if Ware was ever going to return. Perhaps he had deserted. Perhaps this Thesius had found a mate-and had offered Ware a place in that household. Perhaps he had found a woman among Thesius’s people who suited him better than Xylina. After all, his first mate had been from these folk.

  Finally they made their first camp under cover of trees. And it was there that Ware found them.

  She was tending to the dinner, under the direction of Horn, when she heard the sentry challenge someone and heard a longed-for, heartbreakingly familiar voice answering. She managed to keep from revealing everything that had happened between them bynot impulsively jumping to her feet and flinging herself at him. That would have been incredibly stupid as well as obvious. Just at the moment, although she didn’t particularly care that the Queen might find out about all this, she had another consideration. This was something that had occurred to her in one of the few moments that she was certain Ware would return. If the men discovered that she was a demon-lover, they might refuse to follow her. That would not only doom the expedition, it would doom her as well, unless this Thesius, if Ware returned with him, could be persuaded to bring her tohis people.

  So she waited until Horn’s exclamation of greeting told her that Ware was in sight before looking up with a smile she hoped would not be read too clearly by any of the men. It was a smile of welcome, warm and happy, but not too warm, and not too promising. Ware and his escort came threading their way out of the shadows beneath the trees, and into the circle of light from the fire.

  Ware looked-as he always looked, with the sole exception that he was dressed in better clothing than he had worn since the mage-storm. Even at the worst of times, he had never seemed tired or stressed for very long. But there was one surprise. He was leading a string of seven horses, each of them with a pack up behind the saddle. Beside him was another man, a stranger, who led seven more. Was this-?

  “Xylina, this is my old friend Thesius,” Ware said carefully. Carefully enough that she knew, instantly, that she was expected to read between the lines. “Everything wasexactly as I had hoped, and he agreed to help us, and to come with us to guide us, all the way home if need be.”

  The man moved further into the light-and Xylina bit her lip. He was nothing like a Mazonite male. Now she realized why Ware had thought she might have trouble with that particular concept. There was nothing subservient about him; he gazed at her directly and proudly, exactly as another Mazonite would have, and she knew that he was going to judge her as a peer, and not as a mistress.

  She stood up, slowly, very conscious of the fact that her hair was coming undone, that she was sweaty from the long walk and had not had a chance to bathe, that her nails had dirt under them, and that there was soot on the side of her nose from the fire. The stranger was more than immaculately well-groomed and impeccably, though strangely, attired-he was physically perfect.

  He was as blond as she, with large, gray eyes, a chiseled face, and a slender but muscular build, like that of a dancer or runner. From his clothing and the jewels on the hilt of his sword and ornamenting his collar, he was wealthy as well. He watched her, measuringly, and she flushed. Her automatic reaction, which she stifled, was to punish him for insolence. Never in her life had a mere man looked at her that way. But this was no “mere” man, it was a free man, and therein lay the difference. Not a freedman; that was another distinction that had suddenly become critical. This was something she was going to have to keep in mind.

  She pulled herself up to her full height, and looked him straight in the eye. “I am the leader of this expedition,” she said proudly, matching him glance for glance. “Thank you for agreeing to help us.”

  He replied in some unknown tongue; Ware translated for both of them. “Thesius says to tell you that he was pleased to be able to aid his old friend in whatever way possible.”

  I can well imagine, she thought, unable to suppress a twinge of jealousy. Obviously, they had already shared love, since Ware wasWare , and notWara . It occurred to her also that this Thesius could pass for her very own brother; they shared the same hair-color, the same body-type, and given Ware’s exacting standards, he was probably well-spoken and well-educated. He might even be of some kind of noble birth.

  Had Ware chosen her because she looked like Thesius? she wondered. Was he amused by the fact that they could be siblings? Was it really Thesius he had wanted all along, and was she only the means to get this man?

  “We don’t have a great deal, as I am sure Ware has told you,” she said, trying to cover her uncomfortable thoughts as well as she could. “The mage-storm destroyed most of our supplies, but you are welcome to share our poor meal.”

  Ware translated, and again the man spoke. “He is simply saying what I was going to tell you,” Ware said. “That he has brought mounts and supplies for us, and that he thanks you for your ready hospitality. He also-ah-says that he brought some gifts especially for you, clothing and things, and that if you would like to make use of them…” Ware’s voice trailed off, somewhat embarrassed. “He’s trying to be kind, Xylina. He is not intending to insult you, but you do look as if-”

  “As if I’ve been walking across the hills for several days without a bath or a change of clothing; thank you, Ware, I was quite aware of that,” she replied sharply, then took a deep breath and softened her tone, although she could not bring herself to apologize. “Tell him that I appreciate his generosity and that I would beveryglad to get out of these things and into something clean.”

  The man smiled when Ware translated, and Ware dropped his eyes, though from embarrassment or amusement, Xylina could not say. “Thesius says that your things are on the last horse in his string, and that someone of my age and experience should have found a more graceful way
of telling you of his gifts.”

  “You can tell him that I agree!” she snapped, considerably irritated now as well as embarrassed-but she also went straight to the indicated horse and availed herself of the clean clothing she found in its pack. It was not, as she had feared, a completely impractical dress-some kind of fancy, long-skirted robe unsuitable for travel or fighting. It was, in fact, a slightly feminized version of the trousers and shirt that Thesius himself wore, right down to the jeweled collar-studs.

  Now they really would look like brother and sister, she thought, with dismay. But she took the clothing anyway, and leaving Horn in charge of the meal, went off to conjure herself soap and water to make herself presentable.

  When she returned, the others had already started the meal without her. To her continued chagrin, Thesius fit comfortably in with the rest of the men, despite a lack of common language. When she rejoined them, taking her place as unobtrusively as possible, she could not help but notice an exchange of glances between Ware and Thesius, glances that said more than words. And although she put on a cheerful face, her resentment-and yes, jealousy-smoldered just below the surface.

  That resentment and jealousy did not abate as they drew nearer their goal, aided considerably by the horses that Thesius had brought with him. Whenever she looked at Thesius, instead of remembering what she and Ware had shared the night before, she kept recalling that Wara had risen immediately fromher bed and gone tohim. She kept wondering how much Ware cared forher , and how much he cared because she looked like Thesius. She knew that he had to do it, because Wara could not afford to show her face by day, but her emotion refused to be reconciled. Whenever he left her bed, she tortured herself with doubts; whenever he came back she felt guilty about doubting him. She tried to drown both emotions in passion, and did not succeed. One night, after persuading him to return when he had made the change back to male, she sent him shuttling back and forth for half the night-and it did not help that Thesius seemed perfectly capable of keeping up with her in this undeclared contest.

  Faro had it all figured out, of course, and one of the few things helping her to keep a civil “public” face on all of this was his tacit protection of all three of them from discovery.

  When she asked him how he had known, he simply shrugged; she could only assume that Ware must have told him about the changing-and that in itself was a cause for resentment, since Ware seemed to be trustingeveryone with this “secret nature” of his, and yet he had not trusted her until she forced the revelation out of him.

  Things could not have gone on in this way much longer-but the fates had some other surprise in store for them: one that made such trivialities superfluous.

  The woodlands gave way to a flat country, hot and humid, covered with scrub plants and bordered on one side by a salt sea of some kind with a flat, soft sand beach. There was not a great deal of shade, and all the vegetation was bent in a perpetual slant away from the coast. Xylina did not like the look of this country; aside from the fact that it was the most boring place she’d yet seen, it was too open, and there were no good places for defense. There weren’t even hills to vary the countryside, they were plagued by swarms of biting insects which made the horses miserable, and the sticky heat made all of them irritable.

  The insects were particularly hard on the horses, and nothing seemed to keep them off. Xylina tried to conjure repulsive oil, but it repulsed the horses more than the flies. As a result, they were paying more attention to their restive mounts and the fetid heat than to keeping quiet and to “blending” with their surroundings-and that was when an entirely new enemy struck.

  A huge metallic-black creature, droning like some kind of giant insect, swooped down out of the sun straight at their column. As the thing plunged down to within a wagons length of Xylina, she saw that it had a rider that was guiding its motions. It actually did them no harm-

  But it spooked the horses, who began to rear and shy, their eyes rolling wildly.

  The men and Pattée were unused to riding, and lost all control of the beasts. The monster rose into the sky again, turned, and came back for a second pass. That was when the horses panicked completely, and bolted, bucking and kicking.

  Xylina, Faro, Ware, and Thesius managed to keep their horses running in the same direction, but the same was not true of the rest. Most of the men were thrown immediately; some clung to the backs of animals that ran blindly for whatever direction the monster wasnot .

  Xylina clung to the reins and saddle of her horse, trying, not to stop it, but to keep it going in the same direction as Ware’s-and fortunately, Faro was doing the same. She looked back over her shoulder just once-and that was when she realized that the best thing she could do would be tokeep her frightened animal running.

  For the monster in the air was herding those horses that still had men riding them; herding them towards the beach, where they would quickly tire, trying to gallop in the surf and soft sand. And as for the men who had been thrown-there were strangers dressed in brown uniforms, armed, and helmeted, who were rounding them up and making them prisoners. There were many more of these strangers than there were of Xylina’s men, and she realized that the most she could hope for would be to escape without being captured herself.

  Thesius looked back as well, and he must have made the same conclusion, for he suddenly began urging his horse to greater speed, and took over the lead from Ware. Since he seemed to know where he was going, Xylina tried to get her horse to follow his. It was quite willing, and she concentrated on clinging to her saddle.

  The strangers who were taking the others prisoner did not seem inclined to follow. They disappeared into the distance, and the bushes and scrubby trees intervened.

  The horses galloped until their flanks streamed foamy sweat and their breath came in huge, painful gasps. Thesius pulled his horse up to a walk; the rest slowed completely on their own. He spoke quickly and quietly to Ware, pointing in the direction of the mist that signaled a change in realms that lay just on the horizon, and Ware nodded, then turned to Xylina.

  “Thesius recognized those soldiers; they are slavers, and they are not likely to follow us this far, for they are only concerned with gathering as many slaves as they can with as little effort as possible. They will be satisfied with the men and horses that they have captured, and let us escape.”

  Xylina pushed her sodden hair back from her forehead. She was nearly as tired as her poor horse, for it had taken all her strength to stay with him on the wild ride. “I am about to say something that might sound very callous-” she replied, hesitantly. “Are these people known for mistreatment of those they take?”

  Ware questioned Thesius, who only shook his head. Xylina sighed. “Then I see no point in risking ourselves to free the men, since they are merely going from one set of mistresses to another.”

  Faro looked troubled. “You’re not going to try to help them?”

  She turned to him, hoping that he would understand this. “Faro, I am very sorry, but there are many more of those slave-catchers than there are of us-and I am not certain that my diminished ability to conjure is going to make that much of a difference in a case like this.”

  Faro shrugged. “Maybe you have a valid point, little mistress. The men might even be better off; who knows? They are certainly used to being enslaved.”

  Thesius listened avidly as Ware translated all this for him in an undertone, and he nodded vigorously when Faro concluded. He gabbled something else; Ware managed a dry chuckle.

  “He said that most of them will likely be recruited to take slaves themselves, since they are versed in the use of arms-or they will become caravan guards for the slave-takers. Even Pattée evidently has skills they will value. So really, their roles are likely to take a reversal for the better, since they will find themselves to be the masters over women taken as slaves.”

  Xylina gave Thesius a black look for that little remark, but said nothing about it. Instead she asked Ware, “What was that he said when he p
ointed to the next realm?’

  “That this is where the crystal shard is, and that the slavers will not follow us in there.” Ware did not elaborate on that, and Xylina wondered if there had been more said than Ware had mentioned.

  “Then let us go there as quickly as we can,” Xylina said flatly.

  Ware gave her a measuring look, and Thesius said something. This time Ware translated without being asked.

  “He wants to know if you are certain that you wish to continue.”

  She gave that question sober consideration, as the sun burned down on them, and the horses plodded onward towards the border. The thought crossed her mind-as it had many times-that the Queen had certainly set herself up in a situation in which Adria could not lose and Xylina could not “win.” Ware had told her, many times, that Xylina was the only Mazonite likely to make this mission a success; the Queen wanted this shard desperately, for it was her path, not only to immortality, but to immortal youth and to undefeatable power. If Xylina brought it back, the Queen would have all those things, and Xylina would no longer be any kind of threat.

  And if Xylina died in the attempt, she would still be no threat. The Queen simply had to send her out, and wait, like a spider in her web. This mission was a stroke of genius, for the purposes of the Queen.

  Even if Xylina turned back at any point, the Queen would win-since Xylina would still owe her debt to Ware, and the crown guarantee of that debt was contingent on Xylina’s returnwith the shard . Xylina would face the same threats as before she left-give in to Ware (which would take her out of the running for the throne), go into debtors prison, or face exile. One of those options had already been fulfilled.

  And now, there was really no way in which Xylina could possibly retreat. With all of her men and resources gone but Faro, Ware, and Thesius, it would be suicide to recross all that dangerous territory. It might not even be the same: deadly new lands might have take the place of those they had struggled through. Only one thing would make return possible: if Xylina possessed the shard, for its possession would magnify her own powers.