the clansmen’s so that I could converse in that tongue as well as Kregish-there were many and various names for the red sun and the green sun and for all the seven moons, and all the phases of the seven moons. Suffice it that if the need arises I will use the most suitable names; for names are important on Kregen, more, if that be possible, than on Earth. With a name a primitive man may conceive he possesses the inner nature of the thing named. Names were not given lightly, and once given were objects of respect. Yes, names are important, and should not be forgotten.
I will speak no more for the moment of the clansmen of Segesthes but pass on to a day of early spring-the Kregan seasons must revolve like our own so that there is a time of planting and a time of growing and a time of harvesting and a time of feasting; but the binary suns make these elementary distinctions gradually change year by year-when I rode out at the head of a hunting party. The men were happy and carefree, for life was good and, as they said, never had they known a greater Warlord, a mightier Vovedeer, a more furious Zorcander, than Dray Prescot. We had ventured far to the south, leaving that gleaming sea many miles distant-its name was not on record among the clansmen for they were men of the great plains-and we could include in our grazing swing fresh areas opened up to us by the amalgamation with the clan of Longuelm. This had been one reason for my diplomacy of swords.
Even so we had entered areas unknown to the men of Longuelm and this party was as much a scout as a hunt. Looking back now I can blame myself for bad scouting, or for bad generalship. But had our point not missed what he should have seen before he died, all that followed would not have occurred and you would not be listening to this tape.
The ground was breaking with the green growing burgeon of spring as we trotted down between two rounded hills whereon trees grew. We always welcomed trees as signs that water and a break from the plains was near. The air smelled as sweet and fresh as it always does in the better parts of Kregen. The twin suns shone, their emerald and crimson fires casting the twin shadows that were now so usual to me.
We bestrode high-spirited zorcas, and a string of fierce impatiently following voves trailed in the remuda. A few pack animals, calsanys and Kregen asses, mostly, carried our few belongings for camp. Yes, life was good and free and filled with the zest of high living for all those young men who followed me. The image of Delia of the Blue Mountains remained a constant dull ache within me. Yet I was beginning to accept, at last, that I must go on without her.
The shower of arrows and spears felled four of my men, slew my zorca, and pitched me into the dust. I was up in an instant, sword drawn, and a net closed around my head. I could see weirdly-shaped creatures flinging the nets and I hacked and slashed-and then a club smashed against my head and I went down into unconsciousness.
How could I be surprised when I regained consciousness to find that I was naked, apart from a breechclout, and that my hands were lashed together with cords and that I was yoked to what remained of my men?
We were prodded to our feet and commanded to march.
The beasts who had captured us smelled unpleasantly. They were not above four-foot tall, covered in thick hair of a dun color tending to black at the tips, and each had six limbs. The bottom pair were clad in rough sandals, the upper pair wielded the prodding spears and swords and shields, and the middle pair seemed to serve any other function as it became necessary. They wore slashed tunics of some stuff of brilliant emerald color-the color of the green sun of Antares-and their heads, which were lemon shaped with puffy jaws and lolling chops, were crowned with ridiculous flat caps of emerald velvet. They carried their spears as though they knew how to use them.
“Are you all right, Zorcander?” asked one of my men, and the nearest beast growled like a dog in its throat and beat him over the head. He did not cry out. He was a clansman.
“We must stick together, my clansmen,” I shouted, and before the beast could strike me I raised my voice and bellowed:
“We will come through yet, my friends.”
The spear-blade lashed alongside my head and for a space I stumbled along blinded and weak and dumb.
The camp to which we were brought was resplendent with richly-decorated marquees, and everywhere signs of opulence and luxury indicated clearly that this hunting party believed in making life on the great plains as comfortable as possible. Lines of zorcas tethered together on one side were matched by lines of another riding animal, an eight-legged beast not unlike a vove, except that they were smaller and lighter and without the ferocious aspect of a vove, without the horns and the fangs. Our own captured zorcas had been brought in, I noticed, and tethered with the others. But our captors had not brought in one single vove. Had I been given to empty gestures, I would have smiled.
A man stepped from a tent and stood wide-legged, his hands on his hips, regarding us with a curl to his lips. He was very white-faced, dark-haired, and he wore tight-fitting leathers over all his body. They were of the same brilliant emerald as the garments worn by the things that had caught us.
I decided it would be something to do to snap his neck; something that might lighten the drabness of days.
He turned his face back toward the tent opening. The tent was the most grandiose in all the camp. We stood bedraggled and naked in the dust.
“Ho, my princess!” the man called. “The Ochs have made a capture that may amuse you.”
So, I thought to myself, they have princesses hereabouts, do they?
The princess strolled to the entrance to her tent.
Yes, she was beautiful. After all these years, I must admit she was beautiful. One first noticed her hair, like ripe corn with the morning sun shining on it in a field of our own Earth. Her eyes were the cornflower blue of the flowers one might find in that field. These were old and tired cliches before ever they reached Kregen; but I recall her as I first saw her that day long ago as she stood looking down on where we had been flung captive in the dust.
She lifted a white rounded arm that glowed with the warm pink pulse of blood. Her lips were red, red, and soft like a luscious fruit. She wore an emerald green gown that revealed her throat and arms and the lower portion of her legs, and she wore around her neck a string of blazing emeralds that must have ransomed a city. She looked down on us, and her nostrils pinched together as at an offensive smell. Very beautiful and commanding, she looked, on that day so long ago.
I was lifting my face to look at her.
The man walked across and kicked me.
“Turn your eyes to the dirt, rast, when the Princess Natema passes!”
Within my lashings and the yoke I rolled over and still looked up at her although the man had kicked me cruelly hard.
“Does the princess then not desire admiration from a man’s eyes?”
The man went mad.
He kicked and kicked. I rolled about; but the bonds interfered. I heard the princess shouting with anger, and heard her say: “Why clean your boots on the rast, Galna? Prod him with a spear and have done. I weary of this hunt.”
Well, if I were to die, then this monkey would die with me. I tripped him and rolled on him and placed my bound wrists on his throat. His face turned purplish. His eyes protruded. I leered at him.
“You kick me, you blagskite, and you die!”
He gargled at me. There was an uproar. The Ochs ran about waving their spears. I surged upright gripping Galna, and my men on the lashings rose with me. I kicked the first Och in the belly and he tumbled away, screeching. A spear flicked past my body. Galna wore a fancy little sword smothered with jewels. I dropped him as though he were a rattler, and as he fell I managed to drag the little jeweled sticker out. The next Och took the small sword through the throat. It broke off as the beast shrieked and struggled and died.
I flung the hilt at the next Och and cut his head open. I picked up Galna again, my hands and wrists swelling against the lashings, and hurled him full at the princess.
She gave a cry and vanished within her tent.
Then, as it seemed so often when things were becoming interesting, the sky fell in on me.
Neither of us would ever forget my first meeting with the Princess Natema Cydones of the Noble House of Esztercari of the City of Zenicce.
