Clow shook his head and pointed. Away in the distance I could see a speck of white on a hill. It looked too far, but the wind was taking us there, and it grew and grew until we could see that it was a big house, all built of white brick with gardens and outbuildings, and a road that ran up to the door. There are none like that now, I suppose.
L
andings are the most exciting part of traveling by balloon, and sometimes the most unpleasant. If you are lucky, the basket stays upright. We were not. Our basket snagged and tipped over and was dragged along by the envelope, which fought the wind and did not want to go down, cold though it was by then. If there had been a fire in the brazier still, I suppose we would have set the meadow ablaze. As it was, we were tumbled about like toys. Bracata fell on top of me, as heavy as stone, and she had the claws of her mitts out, trying to dig them into the turf to stop herself, so that for a moment I thought I was going to be killed. Derek’s pike had been charged, and the ratchet released in the confusion; the head went flying across the field, just missing a cow.
By the time I recovered my breath and got to my feet, Clow had the envelope under control and was treading it down. Miles was up too, straightening his hauberk and sword belt. “Look like a soldier,” he called to me. “Where are your weapons?”
A pincer-mace and my pike were all I had, and the pincer-mace had fallen out of the basket. After five minutes of looking, I found it in the tall grass, and went over to help Clow fold the envelope.
When we were finished, we stuffed it in the basket and put our pikes through the rings on each side so we could carry it. By that time we could see men on horseback coming down from the big house. Derek said, “We won’t be able to stand against horsemen in this field.”
For an instant I saw Miles smile. Then he looked very serious. “We’ll have one of those fellows over a fire in half an hour.”
Derek was counting, and so was I. Eight horsemen, with a cart following them. Several of the horsemen had lances, and I could see the sunlight winking on helmets and breastplates. Derek began pounding the butt of his pike on the ground to charge it.
I suggested to Clow that it might look more friendly if we picked up the balloon and went to meet the horsemen, but he shook his head. “Why bother?”
The first of them had reached the fence around the field. He was sitting a roan stallion that took it at a clean jump and came thundering up to us looking as big as a donjon on wheels.
“Greetings,” Miles called. “If this be your land, Lord, we give thanks for your hospitality. We’d not have intruded, but our conveyance has exhausted its fuel.”
“You are welcome,” the horseman called. He was as tall as Miles or taller, as well as I could judge, and as wide as Bracata. “Needs must, as they say, and no harm done.” Three of the others had jumped their mounts over the fence behind him. The rest were taking down the rails so the cart could get through.
“Have you straw, Lord?” Miles asked. I thought it would have been better if he had asked for food. “If we could have a few bundles of straw, we’d not trouble you more.”
“None here,” the horseman said, waving a mail-clad arm at the fields around us, “yet I feel sure my bailiff could find you some. Come up to the hall for a taste of meat and a glass of wine, and you can make your ascension from the terrace; the ladies would be delighted to see it, I’m certain. You’re floating swords, I take it?”
“We are that,” our captain affirmed, “but persons of good character nonetheless. We’re called the Faithful Five—perhaps you’ve heard of us? High-hearted, fierce-fighting wind-warriors all, as it says on the balloon.”
A younger man, who had reined up next to the one Miles called Lord, snorted. “If that boy is high hearted, or a fierce fighter either, I’ll eat his breeks.”
Of course, I should not have done it. I have been too mettlesome all my life, and it has gotten me in more trouble than I could tell you of if I talked till sunset, though it has been good to me too—I would have spent my days following the plow, I suppose, if I had not knocked down Derek for what he called our goose. But you see how it was. Here I had been thinking of myself as a hard-bitten balloon soldier, and then to hear something like that. Anyway, I swung the pincermace overhand once I had a good grip on his stirrup. I had been afraid the extension spring was a bit weak, never having used one before, but it worked well; the pliers got him under the left arm and between the ear and the right shoulder, and would have cracked his neck for him properly if he had not been wearing a gorget. As it was, I jerked him off his horse pretty handily and got out the little dagger that screwed into the mace handle. A couple of the other horsemen couched their lances, and Derek had a finger on the dog-catch of his pike, so all in all it looked as if there could be a proper fight, but “Lord” (I learned afterward that he was the Baron Ascolot) yelled at the young man I had pulled out of his saddle, and Miles yelled at me and grabbed my left wrist, and thus it all blew over. When we had tripped the release and gotten the mace open and retracted again, Miles said, “He will be punished, Lord. Leave him to me. It will be severe. I assure you.”
“No, upon my oath,” the baron declared. “It will teach my son to be less free with his tongue in the company of armed men. He has been raised at the hall, Captain, where everyone bends the knee to him. He must learn not to expect that of strangers.”
The cart rolled up just then, drawn by two fine mules—either of them would have been worth my father’s holding, I judged—and at the baron’s urging we loaded our balloon into it and climbed in after it ourselves, sitting on the fabric. The horsemen galloped off, and the cart driver cracked his lash over the mules’ backs.
“Quite a place,” Miles remarked. He was looking up at the big house toward which we were making.
I whispered to Clow, “A palace, I should say,” and Miles overheard me, and said, “It’s a villa, Jerr—the unfortified country property of a gentleman. If there were a wall and a tower, it would be a castle, or at least a castellett.”
T
here were gardens in front, very beautiful as I remember, and a fountain. The road looped up before the door, and we got out and trooped into the hall, while the baron’s man—he was richer dressed than anybody I had ever seen up till then, a fat man with white hair—set two of the hostlers to watch our balloon while it was taken back to the stable yard.
Venison and beef were on the table, and even a pheasant with all his feathers put back, and the baron and his sons sat with us and drank some wine and ate a bit of bread each for hospitality’s sake. Then the baron said, “Surely you don’t fly in the dark, Captain?”
“Not unless we must, Lord.”
“Then with the day drawing to a close, it’s just as well for you that we’ve no straw. You can pass the night with us, and in the morning I’ll send my bailiff to the village with the cart. You’ll be able to ascend at midmorning, when the ladies can have a clear view of you as you go up.”
