Therefore Tragar’s instruction had been overruled by someone in whom Poa-Nan recognised an authority even higher than Tragar’s. And there was only one such person.
‘Balon Ferud wishes to see me,’ he said.
Poa-Nan was momentarily confused. ‘His lordship is in the reception hall, sir,’ the Two said. ‘He told me to tell you that he wants to see the Two named Ace.’
Tragar closed his eyes. His desires had been so close to fruition.
‘Tragar!’ Balon’s voice echoed along the hallway, as did the sound of his heavy footsteps on the stairs. ‘Where is she, Tragar? Where are you hiding that girl?’
‘Come here, Ace,’ Tragar said. He could have wept with anger and frustration. ‘Stand in the centre of the room.’ He raised his voice. ‘In here, my lord. In my study.’
The portly figure of Balon Ferud filled the width of the doorway. He was dressed for the royal court in military regalia: his broad chest had hardly sufficient room for its array of medals and badges. ‘Stand aside!’ he barked at Poa-Nan, and strode into the room.
‘I’m delighted to report,’ Tragar said, ‘that Ace’s training is now complete. I anticipated that you might wish to see her, my lord, so I had her brought here. I was just about to bring her to you.’
‘Were you, indeed?’ Balon said, with a sceptical glance. His attention was taken by Ace. As Tragar had done, he walked around her. He admired her costume. He stopped in front of her.
Ace lowered her head. My lord,’ she said. ‘How may I serve you?’
‘I’m told you’re a fighter,’ Balon said. ‘Is that so?’
Ace grinned. ‘I can look after myself, my lord,’ she said. ‘I don’t mind a bit of aggro. You want to start?’
Balon looked at Tragar. He chuckled. ‘She still has the most remarkable character of speech,’ he said. ‘I’ll take her with me. I think his Majesty will be amused. He might even want to buy her, Tragar. I’ll make sure I make a profit on her, too.’
‘I was sure she would prove to be a worthwhile investment, my lord,’ Tragar said. His only consolation was that his dangerously profligate expenditure of Balon’s money was beginning to look like an inspired gamble.
‘The carriages are ready to leave,’ Balon said as he strode towards the door. ‘Bring her down immediately.’
Tragar, Poa-Nan and Ace stood in silence as Balon’s footsteps receded. Tragar extended his hand. He could at least touch her before she went. A kiss, perhaps; some fleeting, intimate caresses. No - what was the point?
‘Poa-Nan,’ he said, ‘take Ace to the outer courtyard. Ace, go with Poa-Nan and then follow the instructions of the guards.’
He watched them leave, and then he went to the window and filled his pipe.
The settlement, Bep-Wor discovered after the battle, was called Felling Bridge. It had not, in truth, been much of a battle: the traders and travellers had stared open-mouthed from the windows of their cabins and of the inn while Bep-Wor, astride his camelope, had led his ragged army along the rutted street towards the bridge. Half a dozen soldiers had lined up hurriedly to defend the river crossing: they fired their guns into the air and, when they saw that the crowd running towards them was not going to stop, they ran across the bridge into Gonfallon.
Bep-Wor had posted his own guards on the bridge, to make sure the soldiers didn’t return to recapture it. He had had no difficulty in persuading the merchants and the innkeeper to surrender their properties: the very idea of free Twos was enough to terrify them into submission.
In the dining room of the inn, after a meal from the innkeeper’s pantry washed down with wine from the innkeeper’s cellar, the army had cheered Bep-Wor and the Doctor, and had joined in the chorus of the hastily-composed ballad, ‘The Battle of Felling Bridge’.
The next morning, the army crossed the bridge and entered Gonfallon.
The land was forested, but criss-crossed with paths and scattered with clearings. As on the other side of the river, Bep-Wor led the column away from the road, but followed its direction. The terrain undulated, but tended to go uphill rather than down.
At midday Bep-Wor brought the column to a halt in a clearing. He set sentries. The army’s numbers had been swollen again, by the addition of Twos set free at Felling Bridge, and those under the influence of the potion now outnumbered those whom the Doctor had saved from taking it. Bep-Wor found it increasingly difficult to remember which men and women were drugged. They all behaved the same: afloat on a wave of success, and with the Doctor as their steersman, they were all happy to obey Bep-Wor’s directions.
‘We’ll rest here a while,’ he said to the nearest group of men. ‘Break open the rations, and eat sparingly. Drink, but nothing intoxicating. And keep the noise down. Pass the word to everyone else.’
He watched as the men threaded their way through the throng in the clearing, disseminating his orders. Bep-Wor was sure that the group he’d spoken to had been on the transport ship with him; but had they taken the drug, or not? He couldn’t be sure. And it didn’t matter.
The next task was to see to the Doctor. Arduous cross-country marches didn’t seem to tire the Doctor, who usually strode ahead of the main column and who fidgeted impatiently at any delay. Bep-Wor knew that the Doctor would become bad-tempered if given nothing to do; and reluctant as Bep-Wor was to forego his midday meal, he knew that it would bolster his authority if he were to spend time alone with the Doctor.
He found the Doctor at the edge of the clearing, peering into the forest. ‘Let’s scout ahead,’ he suggested, ‘while the others take a rest.’
The Doctor pulled a dial from his pocket and studied the numbers on its face. ‘It’s been almost a week,’ he said. ‘And I still don’t even know where she is.’
‘We’re going as fast as we can, Doctor,’ Bep-Wor said. ‘It would be dangerous for you to go alone, even if we could persuade the army not to follow you.’
The Doctor smiled. To Bep-Wor’s relief the Doctor had been less irritable since the bloodless battle at the river crossing. ‘I know,’ the Doctor said. ‘The guards who ran from the bridge must have retreated along the road we’re following. I’m surprised we haven’t already come across more soldiers out looking for us.’
‘All the more reason for us to look at the way ahead,’ Bep-Wor said. ‘I’ll rest my animal. Let’s go on foot.’
He looked round as he and the Doctor passed from the light of the clearing into the shadow of the trees. He waved.
He wanted to be sure that his departure was noticed: the army would think that he was going to discuss arcane mysteries with the Doctor.
Some time later he and the Doctor were crouching on the treeless summit of a small hill.
‘We should return,’ Bep-Wor said. ‘They’ll start to get restless if we’re away too long.’
He thought that the Doctor hadn’t heard him, and was about to repeat his words, when the Doctor glanced round and lowered his outstretched arm: he wanted Bep-Wor to keep down.
Bep-Wor lay on his front beside the Doctor. ‘Look,’ the Doctor said, ‘the road goes in a wide curve around those two peaks.’
Bep-Wor squinted. He had been renowned for his keen eyesight, but he suspected that the Doctor could see more and further than he. Now he could make out the snaking thread of the distant road.
‘We should keep to the south of those hills,’ he said. ‘We’ll save ourselves an hour’s marching.’
‘That’s true,’ the Doctor said. ‘More to the point, however, is the fact that we’ll also avoid being shot. Look there.’
Bep-Wor rubbed his eyes and stared. Beyond the two hills there was movement on the road. It was a column of soldiers: he saw the glint of weapons. There were hundreds of them.
He felt ridiculously proud. The King of this world had sent out a vast force of his crisply uniformed soldiers to deal with Bep-Wor’s little band. ‘They’re not taking any chances with us,’ he said.
‘That’s not all,’ the Doctor said. ‘There are
just as many off the road. I can see them moving through the forest on both sides. They mean to catch us.’
‘Well, they won’t,’ Bep-Wor said, stepping backwards from the summit, ‘thanks to your sharp eyes. We’ll keep south, and they’ll miss us.’
The Doctor joined him. ‘There will be others,’ the Doctor said. ‘We’re only a day’s march from the capital, according to the innkeeper. We can expect the King’s forces to be more numerous the closer we get.’
‘Then we’ll continue to scout ahead,’ Bep-Wor said. ‘It’s just a matter of -’
He stopped. Watching him and the Doctor was a man, standing still and almost invisible among the trees that ringed the summit of the hill.
Bep-Wor’s hand went to his gun. But the man wasn’t a soldier: he had a long beard, he was wearing clothes sewn from animal skins and, although he had at his belt a long knife in a decorated scabbard, he wasn’t threatening. He was just watching them.
Still, Bep-Wor thought, it didn’t do for anyone to see them.
How much had this man overheard? He would have ensured the man’s silence - if the Doctor hadn’t been with him. With a silent curse he let his hand fall from the gun.
The man remained where he was while the Doctor and Bep-Wor regained the cover of the trees, but he didn’t address them.
‘Who are you?’ Bep-Wor asked him. ‘What are you doing here, dressed in such strange clothing?’
The man didn’t answer, but slowly ran his gaze over Bep-Wor’s purloined uniform and the Doctor’s crumpled jacket and trousers. ‘Strange clothing,’ he repeated, slowly.
He turned and strode away into the trees. ‘Forester,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Come. Eat in my house.’
Bep-Wor and the Doctor looked at each other.
‘I suppose that’s his function,’ the Doctor said, ‘rather than his name.’
‘We should follow him,’ Bep-Wor said. ‘We need to be sure he won’t send the soldiers after us. And I am hungry.’
The forester lived a short way down the side of the hill, in a wooden cabin that was no more than a hut. It had a covered porch with a spectacular view across the surrounding wooded hills.
‘See the city,’ the forester said, pointing towards the horizon.
It was true. Bep-Wor could see the towers and spires of a town, shimmering in the gap between two of the hills.
‘Forester,’ Bep-Wor said. ‘This is the Doctor, and I’m -’ He hesitated, unwilling to reveal his name. He was dressed as soldier; he would invent a rank for himself. ‘I’m the General,’
he concluded.
The forester nodded thoughtfully. He opened the door of the hut and called inside. ‘Dab! Here.’
A man emerged from inside the hut. He was tall, slim, and younger than Bep-Wor. He was dressed in a cotton robe and his hair was as long as a woman’s, but Bep-Wor recognised him as a fellow-countryman - a Two.
‘Dab,’ said the forester, indicating the young man. He pointed to his guests. ‘Doctor. General. Dab, talk to them.’ He plunged into the dark interior of the hut.
‘Yes, forester,’ Dab replied. He turned towards the Doctor and Bep-Wor. ‘Good day to both of you, and welcome to the forester’s house. We live simply here, and we have few visitors. We were about to eat. Would you like to share our meal?’
Bep-Wor and the Doctor exchanged a glance, and then both nodded. The forester emerged from the hut carrying a rickety table, which he placed on the deck of the porch.
‘Talk,’ he said. ‘Good.’
Dab smiled, and made a graceful gesture with one arm.
‘The forester has a monosyllabic habit of speech,’ he said.
‘He’s become unaccustomed to intercourse, other than with me.’
‘Are you -?’ Bep-Wor began. ‘Are you from the other planet?
From Two?’
‘Why, yes,’ Dab replied, ‘of course. My full name is Dab-Tar.
I grew up on Starpoint Island.’ He frowned, as if the memories of his childhood were unpleasant.
Bep-Wor knew the island. It was obvious to him that Dab-Tar was one of his people, but he couldn’t decide whether the Two was under the influence of the drug. The forester, who said nothing as he arranged chairs around the table and carried trays of food and crockery from the hut, seemed more servile than Dab.
‘The forester, as his title suggests,’ Dab said, ‘cares for the forest. He is one of twenty-four such, appointed by the King’s First Huntsman to inhabit the depths of the King’s sylvan wilderness, there to protect the fauna and flora.’
Bep-Wor had never heard a Two, drugged or otherwise, speak in such convoluted sentences. ‘Is the pay good?’ he asked.
Dab fluttered his hands. ‘Financial remuneration there is almost none,’ he said. ‘But the forester’s needs are few and simple.’
Bep-Wor realised that there was no alternative: he would simply have to ask, and apologise afterwards if necessary.
‘The forester had enough money to afford you, though.’
‘I was inexpensive,’ Dab said. He was silent for a moment, frowning again, and then he smiled. ‘None of the traders wanted me. I am too delicate for manual labour, and I had barely survived the journey to this world. I was expected to die.’
The incongruity of Dab’s cheerful expression as he spoke convinced Bep-Wor that Dab was under the influence of the drug.
The forester struck a plate with a wooden spoon to attract attention. ‘Dab: a bargain,’ he said, a grin gleaming in the depths of his beard. ‘Eat now.’
The four men sat round the table. Dab opened the lid of a casserole, and stirred the contents with a spoon. ‘The forester is also the hunter and the chef,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I don’t recognise the birds and beasts that he brings home. But this is a stew of fowl and roots, I know that much, and here we have a salad of cresses, and unleavened bread, and potted meat.’
Bep-Wor’s stomach was groaning for food. While Dab spooned stew on to his plate he managed to comment that the meal looked tasty, but as soon as the plate was set in front of him he forgot all about conversation. He grabbed a piece of bread and began shovelling the stew into his mouth.
It was hot and good.
The Doctor, of course, merely toyed with his food, and therefore had time to think about the strange behaviour and speech of the Two named Dab.
The forester was as silent as Bep-Wor, but for much slurping of soup and sucking of beard. Like Bep-Wor, he seemed content to listen to the animated conversation of Dab and the Doctor.
‘You have a very extensive vocabulary,’ the Doctor said. ‘Do you read a lot?’
Dab laughed. Bep-Wor, his spoon halfway to his mouth, stared at him: he had never before heard a drugged Two laugh. Not even Kia-Ga, not even when he gave her pleasure.
‘My purpose is to read,’ Dab said. ‘I sometimes think the forester’s books are more dear to him than I am. He has a small library of ancient texts, but lacks the learning to comprehend the printed words. Every evening I read to him, by lamplight, before we retire to bed. He says he likes to hear my voice.’
‘Ah, yes,’ the Doctor said. ‘I understand now. And the forester has instructed you to talk, and to use your voice.’
‘Yes, Doctor. The forester wishes me to be at all times loquacious, if not positively verbose.’
‘What a remarkable and convenient arrangement,’ the Doctor cried. ‘Don’t you think so, ah, General? Dab is the forester’s voice - his interpreter of books, his spokesman with strangers. Are you happy here, Dab?’
‘Very happy, Doctor. I am happy for the first time in my life.
The forester and I care for each other.’
Bep-Wor put his hand on the Doctor’s sleeve. ‘He has to say that, Doctor,’ he whispered. ‘He’s taken the drug. He’s obeying the forester’s instructions.’
The Doctor pursed his lips. ‘That’s true. But still -’ he said, and might have said more, had the forester not slowly risen to his feet with his hand on his sca
bbard. The silence of the forest was broken by a shout.
‘There they are,’ the voice called. ‘Doctor! Doctor!’
The forester pulled Dab from the table and stood in front of the young man.
The Doctor and Bep-Wor also stood. Bep-Wor could see a few figures now, running between the trees.
‘Your army has come to find us,’ the Doctor said. ‘You’d better go and keep them quiet, or we’ll have all the King’s men here before you can say Humpty Dumpty.’
Bep-Wor set off down the steps from the porch, but before he had reached the ground his people emerged from the surrounding trees. The entire army had decamped. ‘Doctor!
Doctor!’ they chanted, as they converged on the forester’s hut.
Bep-Wor held up his hands, trying to silence the crowd.
But they seemed excited at having found Bep-Wor and the Doctor, and he found it impossible to keep them quiet.
‘It’s all right,’ he said, trying to make himself heard.
‘There’s nothing to make a noise about. I’m safe. The Doctor’s safe. This is the hut of the forester. He lives here with one of our people.’
The men and women, jostling with each other on the thin circle of clear ground between the forest and the hut, gradually fell silent. Then one voice - Bep-Wor recognised it as belonging to one of the men who had been with him and the Doctor on the transport ship - shouted, ‘One of our people? Free him!’
The cry was taken up by others around the circle. As he tried to calm the crowd Bep-Wor reflected that his general instructions to the freed Twos - that they should copy the behaviour of those who hadn’t taken the drug - did not always produce the desired results.
Suddenly the crowd roared, and surged forward. Bep-Wor turned to see that the Doctor had appeared at the head of the short stairway from the porch of the hut. He gestured for the Doctor to move back, out of sight, but instead the forester appeared behind the Doctor.
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