Jason digested this information while he attempted, less successfully, to digest the unchewable lumps from the stew that he had forced himself to swallow. For drink there had been fermented morope milk, which tasted almost as bad as it smelled. The only course he had missed was the one reserved for warriors, a mixture of milk and still-warm blood, and for this he was grateful.
Once Jason’s curiosity had been satisfied, Oraiel’s turn had come and he had asked questions endlessly. Even while Jason ate, he had had to mumble answers, which the jongleur and his apprentice filed away in their capacious memories. They had not been disturbed, so he considered himself safe, for the time being. It was already late in the afternoon and he had to think of a way to escape and return to the ship. He waited until Oraiel ran out of breath then asked some pointed questions of his own.
“How many men are there in this camp?”
The jongleur had been sipping steadily at the achadk, the fermented milk, and was beginning to rock back and forth. He mumbled and spread his arms wide. “They are the sons of the vulture,” he intoned. “Their numbers blacken the plain and the fearful sight of them strikes terror—”
“I didn’t ask for a tribal history, just a nice round figure.”
“Only the gods know. There may be a hundred; there may be a million.”
“How much is 20 and 20?” Jason interrupted.
“I do not bother my thoughts with such stupid figurations.”
“I didn’t think you could do higher mathematics, like counting to one hundred and other exotic computations.”
Jason went over and peered out of the opening between the laces. A blast of frigid air made his eyes water. High, icy clouds drifted across the pale blueness of the sky, while the shadows were growing long.
“Drink,” Oraiel said, waving the leathem bottle of achadh. “You are my guest and you must drink.”
The silence was broken only by the rasp of sand as the old woman scrubbed out the cooking pot. The apprentice’s chin was on his chest and he appcared to be asleep.
“I never refuse a drink,” Jason said, and walked over and took the bottle.
As he raised it to his lips, he saw the old woman glance up quickly, then bend low again over her work. There was a slight stirring behind him.
Jason hurled himself sideways, the drinking skin went flying and the club skinned his ear and crashed into his shoulder.
Still rolling, without looking, Jason kicked backward and his foot caught the apprentice in the pit of the stomach. He folded nicely and the spiked iron bar rolled free of his limp hands.
Oraiel, no longer drunk, pulled a long, two-handed sword from under the furs beside him and swung on Jason. Though the spikes had missed, the bar itself had numbed Jason’s right shoulder and his arm, which hung limply at his side. There was nothing wrong with his left arm, however, so he flung himself inside the arc of the sword before it could descend and locked his hand around the jongleur’s throat, thumb and index finger on the major blood vessels. The man kicked spasmodically, then slumped unconscious.
Always aware of his flanks, Jason had been trying to keep one eye on the old woman, who now produced a gleaming, saw-edged knife, the camack was an armory of concealed weapons, and hopped to the attack. Jason dropped the jongleur and chopped her wrist so the knife fell at his feet.
The entire action had taken about ten seconds. Oraiel and his apprentice were draped over each other in an unconscious huddle, while the crone sobbed by the fire, cradling her wrist.
“Thanks for the hospitality,” Jason said, trying to rub some life back into his numbed arm. When he could move his fingers again, he tied and gagged the woman, then the others, arranging them in a neat row on the floor. Oraiel’s eyes were open, radiating bloodshot waves of hatred.
“As ye sow, so shall ye reap,” Jason said, picking over the furs. “That’s another one you can memorize. I suppose you can’t be blamed for trying to get your information, and the reward money as well. But you were being a little too greedy. I know that you’re sorry now and want me to have enough of these moth-eaten furs to disguise myself with, as well as that greasy fur hat which has seen better days, and perhaps a weapon or two.”
Oraiel growled and frothed a little around his gag.
“Such language,” Jason said. He pulled the hat low over his eyes and picked up the spiked club, which he had wrapped in a length of leather. “Neither you nor the old girl have enough teeth for the job, but your assistant has a fine set of choppers. He can chew through the leather gag, then chew the thongs on your wrists. By which time I shall be far from here. Be thankful I’m not one of your own kind, or you would be dead right now.” He picked up the skin of achadh and slung it from his shoulder. “I’ll take this for the road.”
There was no one in sight when he poked his head out of the camach, so he stopped long enough to lace the flap tightly behind him. He squinted up at the sky once, then turned away among the domed rows.
Head down, he shuffled away through the barbarian camp.
5
No one paid him the slightest attention.
Bundled as they were against the perpetual cold, most 0f the people looked as ragged and nondescript as he did, male and female, young and old. Only the warriors had any distinction of dress, and they could be easily avoided by scuttling off between the camachs whenever he saw one approaching. The rest of the citizenry avoided them as well, so no notice was taken of his actions.
There appeared to be no organized planning of the encampment that he could see. The camachs staggered in uneven rows, thrown up apparently wherever the owners had stopped. They thinned out after a while and Jason found himself skirting a herd of small, shaggy and evil-looking cows. Armed guards, holding tethered moropes, were scattered about, so he made his way by as quickly as was prudent. He heard and smelled a flock of goats nearby, and avoided them as well. Then, suddenly, he was at the last cainach, and the featureless plain was ahead, stretching out to the horizon. The sun was almost down and he squinted at it happily.
“Setting right behind me, or just a little to the right. I remember that much about the ride here. Now if I reverse the direction and march into the sunset I should come to the ship.”
Sure, he thought, if I can make as good time as the thugs did who brought me here. And if I am going in the right direction, and they made no turns. And if none of these bloodthirsty types find me. If — Enough ifs. He shook his head and braced his shoulders, then took a swig of the foul achadh. As he raised the skin to his mouth, he looked about him and saw that he was unobserved. Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, he strolled out into the empty steppe.
He did not go far. As soon as he found a gully that would shelter him from view of the encampment, he dropped down into it. It gave him some protection from the wind, and he pulled his knees up to his chest to conserve heat, then waited there until it was completely dark. It wasn’t the most morale-building way to spend the time, chilled and getting colder as the wind rustled the grass above his head, but there was no other way. He put a rock on the far wall of the gully, ready to mark the exact spot where the sun set, then huddled back against the opposite wall. He brooded about the radio, and even opened it to see if anything could be done, but it was unarguably beyond repair. After that, he just sat and waited for the sun to reach the western horizon and for the stars to come out.
Jason wished that he had done some more stellar observation before the ship had landed, but it was a little late for that now. The constellations would be unfamiliar and he had no idea if there was a pole star or even a dose circumpolar constellation that he could set his course by. One thing he did remember, from constant examination of the maps and charts as they prepared for the landing, was that they had set down almost exactly on the seventieth parallel, at 70 degrees of north latitude right on the head.
Now what did this mean? If there were a north polar star, it would be exactly 70 degrees above the northern horizon. Given a few nights and a protractor, it would be easy enough to find. But his present situation did not allow much time for casual observation. Or the temperature either; he stamped his feet to see if they still had any sensation remaining in them.
The north polar axis would be 70 degrees above the northern horizon, which meant that the sun at noon would be exactly 20 degrees above the southern horizon. It had to be this way every day of the year, because the
