Return to Fanglith

PART THREE

Larn:

A few hours later I woke up, just barely, and feeling kind of chilly, went below and fell right asleep again. The next thing I knew, someone had grabbed me and jerked my right arm up behind my back. A second person was taking the blast pistol, stunner, and communicator off my belt. Someone else, on deck, was holding a flickering torch down through the hatch; now he backed away.

"Not to struggle." The guy talking was the one who'd taken my weapons. "I wish not to harm you."

The words were Evdashian! Broken Evdashian! Then whoever was holding me jerked me to my feet, harder than he needed to. He was strong, with hands like very large clamps.

I was absolutely wide awake now, but confused. How could the Imperials have found me? And wouldn't the political police have spoken in Standard? Besides, someone whose language was Standard wouldn't speak Evdashian with that accent. It occurred to me then that maybe they'd been here ahead of us this time. Maybe they had native monitors on Fanglith now, who'd picked up my communicator traffic.

But I couldn't really believe that; it seemed impossible that this was happening.

The guy who had me in the hammerlock pushed me toward the ladder. There was just enough light that I could see the one with my weapons start up the ladder.

The man following me had to release his hammer lock to climb the steep steps after me, but at the top, the guy with my weapons was waiting in the dark with my stunner pointed at me.

The sailor on watch was standing well back from the gangplank, obviously afraid of the guys who'd captured me. His relief man was sitting awake on a woo! bale, staring, unmoving. The moon, about three-quarters full, was lighting the scene from about thirty or forty degrees above the western horizon. Considering the geometry of the planet, moon, and sun here, that made it about midnight.

Then the man behind me reached the deck and clamped the hammerlock on me again.

The one with my weapons definitely seemed to be the boss. I could see now that he wore a conical Norman helmet, and I was willing to bet he had a hauberk on beneath his cloak. A knight's outfit. But he was familiar with civilized weapons, because he turned and put both the sailors to sleep with my stunner. I hoped it was to sleep; if he'd reset it upward from the medium setting I usually kept it on, at this range they were probably dead. He hadn't needed to shoot them at all; they hadn't been about to do anything.

Meanwhile the guy behind me never paused, just kept walking across the deck and down the gangplank, pushing me ahead of him. The guy with the torch had started off ahead; the one with my weapons came along behind now. A little way along the wharf we came to several horses, watched by a fourth man. The guy in charge stepped in front of me and turned, stunner steady. Now, in the moonlight and torchlight, I could see his face.

"Brislieu, let go his arm." This time he spoke in Norman French. My arm was released.

"Arno!" I said. This was harder for me to believe than my first idea about Imperials. How had he learned to talk Evdashian? No wonder I hadn't recognized his voice! Then I recalled: The last day we'd been with him, he'd spent a couple of hours plugged into the learning program, absorbing Evdashian-just before the Federation corvette had blown up; a little before we'd left Fanglith. It was surprising he could speak it at all; that had been two and a half years earlier, and he'd never had a chance to use it, even once.

"I'd come here looking for you!" I told him. "But how did you find me? How did you even know I was back on Fanglith?"

He laughed softly. "Your French has gotten worse," he said, again in Norman French. "You've been speaking too much Provencal. We'll talk of how I found you, and of other things, when we're out of town." He gestured toward one of the horses. "That one is yours; get on. We have some twenty miles to ride. And do not try to escape. You'll be more comfortable sitting in the saddle than tied over it on your belly, and the scenery will be better that way."

I put a foot in the stirrup and swung up onto the horse-one of the heavy war horses that the Normans call destriers. Arno had swung into the saddle without letting the stunner move away from me. Then we rode off down the dirt street, the horses' iron-shod hooves thudding softly in the quiet night. I hadn't ridden since Normandy; the horse's smell and the roll of its gait felt good to me. At one point we encountered a street patrol, but they didn't pay any attention to us. I suppose they recognized Arno and Brislieu as Norman knights, and Normans were the masters here.

The wall around Reggio was higher and thicker than the one at Marseille. One of the gate guards opened a narrow gate for us, and before long we were in the moonlit countryside. Here Brislieu took the lead and Arno rode beside me, their squires sharing a horse behind us. After a few moments I repeated my earlier question:

"How did you find me?"

Arno chuckled. "Those who gain fame are easy to find. I had come to Reggio to arrange to ship horses to Palermo, and in an inn I heard a ship's captain tell a marvelous story, about a holy man who talked to his crucifix. Or actually to an angel, through his crucifix.

And either the crucifix or the angel talked back to him; I forget just how he told it."

Arno laughed again. "The angel sent down lightning from the sky, which struck and sank a corsair. And moments later the eye of GOD shown down as a shaft of golden light, to fall unerringly on the holy man. Then, later, when a plague of grippe sickened all others aboard, this holy man, who was named the Blessed Larn, was not touched by it.

"Later still, when a storm threatened to send one and all to their deaths, this Larn, who was from India incidentally, called on the angel again. Angel Deneen, he called her. And the water smoothed around them like a silver mirror, though at a little distance the waves heaved and tossed more savagely than before."

I could see Arno's grin in the moonlight. "Even allowing for exaggeration," he continued, "I might have "wondered if it was you, even if he had not named you. And indeed I did not catch your name clearly when first he said it, for not only was he speaking Provencal, but his mouth was full at the time. But your sister's name left no doubt."

He chuckled again. He'd changed since I'd seen him last; his mood was lighter. "Lightning from the sky. That was something you didn't show us before. Or was that the shipmaster's imagination?"

"He stretched things a little," I said, "but it was pretty much true."

He looked me over now as we rode. "You've grown," he said. "You were tall already; now you're as tall as Brislieu. Or very nearly. What brought you back to- our world?"

It was hard for him to say "our world," as if he'd never quite accepted that there were others. In spite of everything he'd seen.

I didn't answer right away-didn't know just how to start, although I'd thought before about what I'd say to Arno when I found him. The country air was a little chilly, an early spring night in a warm climate. Moonlight lay a shimmering path across the strait to our right; to our left it lit the rugged hills, and filled the ravines with inky shadow.

"What brought us to Fanglith?" I answered him in Evdashian, slowly and carefully, so that hopefully he'd understand. It seemed best that Brislieu and the others not know what I was saying. "Tyranny and death. The rulers who had driven us from our first home, our first world, have become even more tyrannical."

I paused to let him get that much of it, then continued. "It has named itself the Glondis Empire, and begun to conquer more worlds-including the world where we'd made our new home." I peered at Arno, trying to see his shadowed eyes. "Eventually I expect they'll come here to conquer yours."

He answered in Evdashian, thoughtfully. "Then why come you here, if they will someday follow?"

He still held my stunner in his hand, pointed at me.

"Not to hide," I told him. "We would find no satisfaction in hiding."

"Then why?"

What to tell him? The truth, I decided-the truth in its simplest terms. "We left our home world under gunfire," I told him, still in slow and careful Evdashian. "We were being shot at by powerful weapons. Three of us were killed-shot down as we ran to the sky boat. One was my wife; the Glondis Empire does not hesitate to kill women. We had planned to go to a certain world where we would be welcomed, to help build a rebellion. But our leader, the one of us who knew how to go there, was also killed.

"Your world was the one world we knew the way to, where we felt the Imperial sky navy had not gone yet, because you are so very far away here; much farther than other worlds with people on them."

I had no idea what Arno might be thinking. Maybe that I was crazy-possessed by a demon, as the abbot of St. Stephen's had thought that summer day. But Arno had seen our family cutter and ridden on it several times, which should make a lot of other strange and unlikely claims seem at least marginally possible.

"So we came here with more intentions than plans,"

I went on. "We will try to set ourselves up as supporters of some able and powerful man, and help him establish a kingdom on this world-a kingdom that is too strong for any power here to defeat-then help him form an empire that is not evil like the Glondis. And help him manage it; help him make this world so strong that if, or when, the Glondis Empire comes here, they will not be able to enslave you."

As I said it, it seemed to me that we could never make Fanglith that strong. It was too primitive!

"You came here in a sky boat again?" Arno asked very matter-of-factly.

"Yes. There's no other way."

"And you have a supply of the weapons you had before?"

"A small supply." Suddenly I felt a light surge of excitement. I was onto something after all.

"And if we're successful in setting up a kingdom here, we can go back to our own part of the sky and find a world where more such weapons can be gotten, and bring them."

And experienced rebels with assorted skills, to help build a technical base here, I told myself. That might possibly work; it just might.

We kept riding through the night, his eyes on me, and I knew he had to be digesting what I'd said. Maybe planning something, too. What had Isaac ben Abraham said about the Normans? "They have an extreme restlessness, a recklessness…" Something like that. And also something about "treacheries bloody and outrageous."

Then Arno quit pointing the stunner at me, clipping it on his belt without saying anything.

"Where are we going?" I asked, in Norman now.

"To the castle of Roger of Hauteville, at Mileto, some twenty miles south of here."

"Will I meet Roger?"

"Roger and his elder brother Guiscard, the duke, are on Sicily, where they captured Palermo three months ago. Palermo is Sicily's greatest city-one of the world's greatest-and beautiful beyond words. I fought there. I led a squadron. Then the duke dubbed Roger the Count of Sicily. Roger will rule the island for him, though Guiscard, as duke, will keep Palermo as his own.

"Roger has said he will keep his castle at Mileto, where we are going now. It is no stronghold such as Normans build here, but its walls are thick, and he has no lack of men to defend it. And he controls the country far around.

"He has given me my own fief outside Palermo, where I am having a castle built of stone, atop a rocky hill. I have my own liege knights and sergeants there now, looking to it."

Arno had obviously come a long way in less than three years. He was peering at me as if trying to see what I thought of all this, but the moon was on the wrong side; my face was shadowed. "It is good land," he went on. "Much of it is lowland, nearly flat, with a mountain stream that carries water the year round. But there is no great marsh, and therefore, it is said, no fever. And because the lower slopes are northerly, the pasturage grows thicker and stays green longer."

"So you're going to remain a warrior after all," I said, "instead of becoming a merchant."

"Not so. I have become a baron, but I am also a merchant who raises destriers for our knights and sergeants. That's why I am here in Calabria just now, instead of on my own fief. I've been grazing my breeding herd on the count's land here until I should have my own. In town today I arranged to have them shipped to Palermo. Late tomorrow a ship will come to the wharf at Mileto, and we will load them."

"But most merchants are free men, isn't that so?" I asked. "While a baron is a vassal, owing military service to his liege lord."

For some seconds there was only the dull plodding of hooves on dirt, the occasional click of an iron shoe on stone. Then Arno answered. "No man is truly free. A merchant makes agreements with buyers and others, and owes them goods or services. He pays in money or goods for protection, and more often than not he owes the moneylender."

We rode a way farther without saying anything, Arno's eyes ahead. Finally, he looked at me again. "As a younger son I have no inheritance," he told me, "and my eldest brother is not a man of influence. For me, the road to wealth can best begin by swearing fealty to a great lord, preferably a conqueror, and making myself of special value to him. Also, both Guiscard and Roger are granting fiefs that have little to do with land. One great noble will build Guiscard a fleet with which to conquer Greece or possibly Africa. In my own case, in Sieu of military service, I may pay Roger in destriers if I wish.

"I caught Roger's eye on the battlefield at Misilmeri, nearly four years since, and happily, he had not forgotten me when I returned a year later with my first herd. Italian horses are not suited to our Norman tactics; they lack the weight and strength. So the destriers I brought were almost beyond price. My second herd was mostly brood mares, with only three great stallions. With them I…",

Deneen's voice spoke unexpectedly from the communicator at Arno's belt. He was so surprised he jerked, then reined in his horse. I stopped mine, too. I hadn't remembered to switch it to remote reception after I'd used it the last time on the ship.

"Larn, this is Javelin," she was saying. "Larn, this is Javelin. Over."

"I should answer her," I said.

He reached to his belt and took off the communicator, peering at it. "How is it used? I've forgotten."

"It's a different model from the one I had before. This one is military. Here," I added, reaching.

He scowled, holding it away from me. "Tell me," he said, "for I will not put it in your power."

"All right," I countered, "hold it in your hand and let me touch the magic places."

"Larn, what's the situation down there?" Deneen's voice went on. Obviously, she thought I had it on remote and that no one else was hearing her. She sounded somewhere between exasperated and worried. "Bubba says you're out in the countryside. I seem to have you located on the viewer-I presume it's you- with four other men on the road that goes south along the coast. Come in please, if you can. Over."

While she was saying that, Arno held the communicator out for me to touch. I opened the transmit switch and raised the volume a bit. "Okay, Arno," I told him. "Talk to her."

"Hello," he said in Evdashian. "I am Arno of Courmeron."

"What? Who are you? I can't understand you."

She could understand him all right. She wanted him to give me the communicator. But from his expression, he wasn't about to.

"You understand me so good as you must. I am Arno of Courmeron."

She did something with the switch, and the communicator made clicking noises, sharp and rapid.

"Larn, can you hear me?" she said. "What's going on there? Whose voice was that? Over."

He wasn't very happy with that either, but he held it out where I could talk into it.

"Hi, Deneen." I was speaking Evdashian too, slowly, so that Arno could more or less follow what I said. "That was Arno of Courmeron. And I didn't find him; he found me. He'd heard about me in an eating place, and surprised me when I was sleeping; he and three other Normans. He's got my stunner and blast pistol and communicator.

"Don't worry, though. Everything is all right so far. He and I are talking about things we might do together. Right now we're going to where he's staying."

Arno was watching me intently. I'd need to throw in some words he didn't know so he wouldn't understand what I had to say next, "I'll activate the remote if the opportunity presents. You palpitate the switch additionally after I enunciate the appellation of our telepathic quadruped."

I paused. It was desirable that Arno did understand what I said next, so this time I spoke simply. "Arno is holding me prisoner, sort of. He doesn't fully trust me and I don't fully trust him, but I think he and I can work something out together. Meanwhile, you follow us from above. You can use magic to know whether I've been harmed or not." Magic Arno accepted, more or less, while technology was foreign to him. I paused now for emphasis. "If I'm harmed," I continued, "you know what to do. And take good care of Bubba."

As soon as I said "Bubba"-the "appellation of our telepathic quadruped"-the speaker not only gave another series of clicks, but a loud squeal. I don't know how she did the squeal part.

"Here," I said to Arno. "I need to fix it."

He hesitated, then moved his horse closer so I could look the communicator over. Reaching, I switched it to remote. "There," I said. "That may fix it, or it may make it worse.

"Deneen," I added, "my communicator is acting up again. Same old problem-clicking noises. I've adjusted the gummox. If you can hear me, transmit again and let's see if it's working now. Over."

Both Arno and I looked at the communicator as if watching would help it work. Of course it didn't make a sound that he could hear. "Deneen," I said, "we do not receive you. Transmit again please. Over."

Her voice murmured in the privacy of my ear canal. "Well, brother mine, was that quiet enough for you? Cough if your remote is working. Over."

I coughed, cleared my throat, then looked at Arno, and he at me. "The amulet refuses to talk for now," I said in Norman, shaking my head. "I've had trouble with it before. It will work for a while, and then for no apparent reason it quits."

Of course Arno, being a Norman, was suspicious. I could read it in his face, even by moonlight.

I shrugged. "It will probably work all right later. Will it be all right for me to put it to rest? No use running down the power cell." The last two words were in Evdashian, of course. "That which gives it power," I added in Norman.

To him it was all magic. I could almost smell his distrust as he nodded. "Do what you must," he said, "as long as I keep the amulet."

"If you insist," I answered, and reaching again, switched off the transmitter. The remote would continue to function.

As we started down the road, the remote murmured again. "Larn, I'm getting ready to give him a demonstration. You might want to prepare him so he won't think he's being attacked."

I had this natural urge to answer, but didn't. "Arno," I told him, "if I know Deneen, we can expect her to do something to prove her power to you. I'm sure she won't harm anyone, because we'd like to be your allies. But it may be pretty noisy, so be ready."

He nodded, saying nothing. It wasn't more than half a minute later that a spotlight caught us. Brislieu, taken by surprise, stopped his horse and drew his sword, glancing upward for a moment. Arno was too smart to look at the lamp even briefly; it would make his pupils contract. He looked only at the illuminated area of the ground. Their squires halted behind us; I don't know what they made of all this.

Then the light switched off.

Nothing more happened for a long minute. I sat holding the reins tight, waiting. If what I suspected happened next, my horse might easily start bucking; the average saddle gorn at home would have. Then the light came on again. This time it wasn't an intense and narrow beam, but spread to flood a grove of trees planted in rows not far from the road. I tensed, almost sensing Tarel at the weapons controls.

The dull "thud thud thud" of the heavy blaster punctuated the night, a series of twelve or fifteen shots in maybe six seconds. Energy bolts hissed, trees burst, fragments of wood whirred and plunked around. The horses, well trained, jerked and danced but settled down quickly. Then it was quiet, and the floodlight showed shattered stubs where the nearest trees had been, two hundred feet away.

After a moment it switched off again; only the dark was left. I wondered if any locals had seen what had happened, and what they'd make of it if they had.

The light came back on, its beam narrower again, to shine on a steep, rocky slope about a quarter mile away. Our eyes went to it. The blaster thudded again- one, two, three, four-the bolts slamming one after another into the bedrock. Shards flew, and above the target point a large slab broke loose to slide crashing to the foot of the slope.

Then once more it was dark.

"I think she's done now," I said quietly in Norman. "We have much more powerful weapons this time than before. And we are harder. We have seen our friends killed, and we are looking for allies."

As I said it I had a kind of feeling I'd never had before, a sort of dry emptiness that marked some kind of change in me. It wasn't especially bad, but it wasn't good either. There was a certain flavor of regret to it, but not a heavy sadness or anything like that. And with it came a sense of strength as well. I didn't think I'd ever be awed by Normans again. Impressed by them maybe, but not awed.

"Let us go on," Arno said, also in Norman. "We have miles to ride yet." His voice was quiet. He sounded more than just impressed; he sounded as if he had things to think about.