horsehair plume nodding above. A round shield painted with a gorgon face rested against his knee, and a slender lance was in his hand. Anachronistically, his arms and legs were covered in fatigues of red and brown and black camouflage patterns. Both katana and Mauser broom-handle pistol dangled from his web-belt in holster and sheath.
Beaten again. Oh, I did not mind being a prisoner-- heck, I was used to that by now. I had lost another race. Someone got to Mars before me.
'You will plant no flags on the soil of my world,' Lord Mavors said. Behind him was a banner standing: a black field with a red circle, from which a single arrow pointed to the upper right.
Behind and above Mavors, I could see a flickering discontinuity, like the ripples on the surface of a lake. On this side was breathable earthlike air; on the other side, the thin subarctic atmosphere of Mars. I guessed I was seeing the refraction from the change in density of the medium: the boundary between two sets of natural law. The film was stretched like a drumhead over the half-mile-wide crater valley.
Before I could get up, Mavors tipped his lance, and the blade touched me lightly on the shoulder, not two inches from my naked cheek.
He said, 'It takes about four pounds per inch of pressure for a blade to penetrate the skin. Once the skin is broken, no other internal organs-all of which are necessary for life, or useful-offer any real resistance. Only bone. A man skilled with a spear, of course, knows to avoid bone.'
So there I knelt before his crude throne on all fours, looking up at him. The Union Jack had spun from my hand as I collapsed, and I could see it, an impromptu parachute, unrolled in midair over Mavors' head.
He moved his eyes, but no other part of him, and glanced up. The rippling fabric of red, white, and blue, bold with the cross of Saint Andrew and Saint George, seemed to be caught or suspended in the surface tension of the air boundary separating the crater bowl from the thin Martian air above. Now it began to sink in the slight Martian gravity, and started to fall, pulled down by the weight of its pikeshaft.
Mavors said, 'Boreas, don't let her banner touch the soil.'
There was another eye-wrenching distortion, like a heat shimmer, and I could see Headmaster Boggin standing beside the throne. He was wearing a flowing garment like a tunic, but backless to allow for his wide red wings, and his unbound tresses of fine rose red brushed his shoulders. Only the breadth of those shoulders and the thickness of his chest saved his appearance from girlishness. His shins and feet were bare, and I saw the green stone, jade-hued like Vanity's, winking on his toe.
With a whirl of wings, he jumped into the air and caught the falling flag before it touched down.
He landed and bowed to Mavors, and returned to his spot by the side of the throne.
'Why did you do that?' I asked Mavors.
He raised an eyebrow and glanced at Boggin, whose expression was mild and unreadable. Maybe most people on their hands and knees in the dirt before him did not ask curt questions. Looking back to me, Mavors said, 'I did not want your colors to touch the soil.'
'Then you are a man of honor,' I said.
'No farther than is practical,' he allowed, with a slight inclination of his head. By this he meant that dirtying my banner would have (in his eyes) obligated me to fight until I died.
I drew in a shivering breath. 'And so you will understand why I must stand up, even if you kill me for it.'
Did I mention that I was scared? The hair inside my cap was lank with sweat, and my jacket felt close. Even my scarf was strangling me. The knowledge that he had vowed to protect us children did not seem like a very solid comfort when I was looking in his eyes, and trying to find the strength in my knees.
I expected the eyes of a murderer, pitiless and cold. Instead, his eyes were old with sorrow, wise and ancient as winter. They were the eyes of a veteran, weary of war, but still iron-hard. He wanted to go home, put down his red-hot sword, throw his heavy helm aside, and lay his head in the lap of the glancing-eyed love-goddess.
And I was the obstacle in his way.
He let me get to my feet alive. That was something, at least.
Mavors spoke. 'Your presence on my dead, war-slain world is unexpected. I can make no sense of it. Why come here?'
I just shrugged, and said nothing. If he didn't understand, it wasn't my place to explain it to him.
Boggin leaned and whispered, 'Highness, if I may mention, the young lady is of the blood of Helion, not to mention, ah, Oceanos and Tethys, lords of the endless waste. Our universe must seem a small place to her, three cramped dimensions, a mere fifteen billion light-years across. The girl suffers from claustrophobia.'
Mavors waved him away. To me, he said, 'I am not asking why you came to see me; I am asking why you are absent from your post without my leave. These were not your orders.'
'Wh-? I mean, I beg your pardon, sir? Orders?'
'You and yours went to ground on an island. You knew, at least from the moment you saw
