family, almost grown, was attracted to me and—I had been long away from my wife, and everyone had told me the Danskar hold with freedom before marriage, and—well, I meant no harm. I merely encouraged—But Ottar found out, and challenged me.”
“Why did you not meet him?”
No use to say that a civilized man did not engage in violence when any alternative existed. “Consider, my lord,” Jason said. “If I lost, I’d be dead. If I won, that would be the end of my company’s project. The Ottarssons would never have taken weregild, would they? No, at the bare least they’d ban us all from their land. And Peloponnesus needs that timber. I thought I’d do best to escape. Later my associates could disown me before Norland.”
“Strange reasoning. But you’re loyal, anyhow. What do you ask of me?”
“Only safe conduct to—Steinvik.” Jason almost said “Neathenai.” He checked his eagerness. “We have a factor there, and a ship.”
Bela streamed smoke from his mouth and scowled at the glowing cigar end. “I’d like to know why Ottar grew wrathful. Doesn’t sound like him. Though I suppose, when a man’s daughter is involved, he doesn’t feel so lenient.” He hunched forward. “For me,” he said harshly, “the important thing is that armed Norlanders crossed my border without asking.”
“A grievous violation of your rights, true.”
Bela uttered a horseman’s obscenity. “You don’t understand, you. Borders aren’t sacred because Attila wills it, whatever the shamans prate. They’re sacred because that’s the only way to keep the peace. If I don’t openly resent this crossing, and punish Ottar for it, some hothead might well someday be tempted; and now everyone has nuclear weapons.”
“I don’t want war on my account!” Jason exclaimed, appalled. “Send me back to him first!”
“Oh no, no such nonsense. Ottar’s punishment shall be that I deny him his revenge, regardless of the rights and wrongs of your case. He’ll swallow that.”
Bela rose. He put his cigar in an ashtray, lifted the saber, and all at once he was transfigured. A heathen god might have spoken: “Hence-forward, Jason Philippou, you are peace-holy in Dakoty. While you remain beneath our shield, ill done you is ill done me, my house and my people. So help me the Three!”
Self-command broke down. Jason went on his knees and gasped his thanks.
“Enough,” Bela grunted. “Let’s arrange for your transportation as fast as may be. I’ll send you by air, with a military squadron. But of course I’ll need permission from the realms you’ll cross. That will take time. Go back, relax, I’ll have you called when everything’s ready.”
Jason left, still shivering.
He spent a pleasant couple of hours adrift in the castle and its courtyards. The young men of Bela’s retinue were eager to show off before a Homelander. He had to grant the picturesqueness of their riding, wrestling, shooting and riddling contests; something stirred in him as he listened to tales of faring over the plains and into the forests and by river to Unnborg’s fabled metropolis; the chant of a bard awakened glories which went deeper than the history told, down to the instincts of man the killer ape.
A servant tapped his arm. “The Voivode wants you.” It was a frightened voice.
Jason hastened back. What had gone wrong? He was not taken to the room of the high seat. Instead, Bela awaited him on a parapet. Two men-at-arms stood at attention behind, faces blank under the plumed helmets.
The day and the breeze were mocked by Bela’s look. He spat on Jason’s feet. “Ottar has called me,” he said.
“I— Did he say—”
“And I thought you were only trying to bed a girl! Not seeking to destroy the house that befriended you!”
“My lord—”
“Have no fears. You sucked my oath out of me. Now I must spend years trying to make amends to Ottar for cheating him.”
“But—”
“You will not ride in a warcraft. You’ll have your escort, yes. But the machine that carries you must be burned afterward. Now go wait by the stables, next to the dung heap, till we’re ready.”
“I meant no harm,” Jason protested. “I did not know.”
“Take him away before I kill him,” Bela ordered.
Steinvik was old. These narrow cobbled streets, these gaunt houses, had seen dragon ships. But the same wind blew off the Atlantic, salt and fresh, to drive from Jason the last hurt of that sullenness which had ridden here with him. He pushed whistling through the crowds.
A man of Westfall, or America, would have slunk back. Had he not failed? Must he not be replaced by someone whose cover story bore no hint of Hellas? But they saw with clear eyes in Eutopia. His failure was due to an honest mistake: a mistake he would not have made had they taught him more carefully before sending him out. One learns by error.
The memory of people in Ernvik and Varady—gusty, generous people whose friendship he would have liked to keep—had nagged him awhile. But he put that aside too. There were other worlds, an endlessness of them.
A signboard creaked in the wind. The Brotherhood of Hunyadi and Ivar, Shipfolk. Good camouflage, that, in a town where every second enterprise was bent seaward. He ran to the second floor. The stairs clattered under his boots.
He spread his palm before a chart on the wall. A hidden scanner identified his fingerpatterns and a hidden door opened. The room beyond was wainscoted in local fashion. But its clean proportions spoke of home; and a Nike statuette spread wings on a shelf.
Daimonax Aristides looked up from his desk. Jason sometimes wondered if anything could rock the calm of that man. “Rejoice!” the deep voice boomed. “What brings you here?”
“Bad news, I’m afraid.”
“So? Your attitude suggests the matter isn’t catastrophic.” Daimonax’s big frame left his chair, went to the wine cabinet, filled a pair of chaste and beautiful goblets, and relaxed on a couch. “Come, tell me.”
Jason joined him. “Unknowingly,” he said, “I violated what appears to be a prime taboo. I was lucky to get away alive.”
“Eh.” Daimonax stroked his iron-gray beard. “Not the first such turn, or the last. We fumble our way toward knowledge, but reality will always surprise us.… Well, congratulations on your whole skin. I’d have hated to mourn you.”
Solemnly, they poured a libation before they drank. The rational man recognizes his own need for ceremony; and why not draw it from otherwise outgrown myth? Besides, the floor was stainproof.
“Do you feel ready to report?” Daimonax asked.
“Yes, I ordered the data in my head on the way here.”
Daimonax switched on a recorder, spoke a few cataloguing words and said, “Proceed.”
Jason flattered himself that his statement was well arranged: clear, frank and full. But as he spoke, against his will experience came back to him, not in the brain but in the guts. He saw waves sparkle on that greatest of the Pentalimne; he walked the halls of Ernvik castle with eager and wondering young Leif; he faced an Ottar become beast; he stole from the keep and overpowered a guard and by-passed the controls of a car with shaking fingers; he fled down an empty road and stumbled through an empty forest; Bela spat and his triumph was suddenly ashen. At the end, he could not refrain:
“Why wasn’t I informed? I’d have taken care. But they said this was a free and healthy folk, before marriage anyway. How could I know?”
“An oversight,” Daimonax agreed. “But we haven’t been in this business so long that we don’t still tend to take too much for granted.”
