end. The aragorn rode in. I just sat there, stupefied, weak, watching them as they made their grand gestures, gave their orders, as the produce was brought forth and loaded on the backs of calsanys. I, Dray Prescot, Krozair of Zy, just sat.
Whatever of harvest thanksgiving lay in the hearts and minds of these men, it did not touch the people of the village.
I looked at these aragorn.
They rode zorcas. Well they would, being proud and mailed men in their might. These zorcas were fine beasts, with the tall and spindly legs and the single twisted horn that brought back the memories of riding with the wind across the Great Plains of Segesthes. The aragorn had the habit of using the tight rein, so that the twisted horns upreared in a way at once proud and flaunting to observe, and damned uncomfortable for the poor zorcas.
They were men. On Kregen, of course, one habitually identifies species as well as race. Their armor shone resplendently: plate on back and breast and thigh, with thick purple-dyed leather for arm and leg. They wore the typical Vallian hat, with its low crown and wide brim with the dashing upcurled feather, and with those two slots cut in the brim over the forehead. At their saddle bows swung morions. They did not carry lances, and their weapons were rapier and main-gauche, and a sheaf of javelins. I wanted to get up and challenge them, but lethargy like a spider’s web adhering to my arms and legs drew me down.
The aragorn took the produce, hit a couple of old men over the head with their riding crops, stared around arrogantly, and announced they were staying overnight. From their small string of calsanys they produced food and wine of kinds that the villagers had not seen since this blight had been laid on the land. They turfed Theirson and Thisi out of their hut and Vulima and Totor out of theirs, commandeering them. There were six aragorn, with six slaves for servants, and three dancing girls, with golden chains through their nostrils and exotic transparent pantaloons and silver-mesh mantles. There was about these aragorn the simple belief that they were the masters, that what they said was law and must be instantly obeyed. No idea of opposition occurred to them.
I realize I have not given you any description of their faces. I find I approach this with diffidence. Even then, as I sat in the dust, I could see in their faces what so many people have seen in mine. There was the same harsh intolerance, the same fierce and predatory demands of instant obedience, the same intemperate damn-you-to-hell arrogance, that old devil’s look I know I assume. And yet I know many women have looked on me with a kindly eye, and I get along with children famously, and I venture to think that if any traces of that show in my face they were absent from the countenances of the aragorn.
“Get this dolt out of the way,” said one, as he swung down from his zorca.
“He is sick, master, badly sick.”
“Then I’ll drive out his disease!” and with that the aragorn put his boot up. He intended to kick me in the face. I moved my head sideways, yet I felt that treacherous lassitude upon me and I was slow. The aragorn’s boot took me in the shoulder and I toppled backward into the dust. They laughed.
A couple of the villagers scuttled across to help me up and away. I say scuttled advisedly. The villagers bowed, and remained bowed, in the presence of the aragorn.
The absolute terror these men spread about them could be seen in little things. In the way people ran to hold their zorcas’ heads, for instance. The constant trembling in their bodies, their hands shaking, their words disconnected. In the sudden rigidity with which they reacted to the words of the aragorn, so it seemed as though mere words could strike them to stone. The aragorn took whatever they wanted, and destroyed casually and without thinking in their search for hidden food. All valuables had long since vanished.
I thought of my sword, hidden I knew not where, and sweated it out. That night I heard the shrill laughter, and the clashing of ankle-bells — I have never made up my mind if ankle-bells are the height of refined sexuality or the depths of depravity, or if they merely denote shocking bad taste — and although I could not see these men I could guess the games they were up to, the wine they were drinking, the food they were guzzling.
I still felt weak in the morning.
“Where is my sword, Theirson?”
“No, Drak. No!”
Thisi the Fair moaned. “You will surely be killed.”
“My sword!”
But these old folk possessed courage and tenacity where their friends were concerned. They could do nothing about the aragorn, and so were beaten. But for me, they could save my life. Who am I to say they did not? I was aware then, and subsequently have been more than grateful, that I was privileged to be called their friend.
So I, Dray Prescot, had to watch with bowed head and a face over which I had drawn a corner of an orange cloth as the aragorn, leisurely, insolently, prepared for departure and then rode out. They rode their zorcas well. Easily and lithely in the saddle; tall, bold, strong men, absolute masters, absolutely in command; oh, yes, they bore the outward semblance of warriors. But I knew that the ordinary fighting-men of Kregen among whose number I had been proud to include myself, were as different from these men, these aragorn, as are the zhantils from the leems.
When they had gone I said to Theirson: “Do they often ride in and take everything you have?”
“Whenever they wish. We cannot stop them.”
I noticed that the villagers seemed to be beyond the point at which mere ordinary curses could do anything for them in their mortal anguish against the aragorn. The aragorn were mercenaries, of course, working with the slave-masters. Now they were living in high fettle in various of the castles and fortresses of the island, going out on their raids, drinking and wenching, quarreling, quite happy to live here on the backs and the sweat of those they had not run off into slavery.
“They make sure we have enough on which to survive. That way we can work for them.”
“How long is it to go on for?” said Thisi. Her veined hands trembled. “We must have offended the invisible twins in some way not vouchsafed to us.”
“Not so,” I said. “These are men, and therefore may be killed. I am a man of peace, but now give me my sword.”
They tried to dissuade me. I was arguing with them, most vehemently, when I found myself sitting on the ground. I was weak, still — damned weak! I struggled up, and swayed, and blinked my eyes, and Thisi gave me a cup of water, and I knew I must wait until the marvelous powers of the waters of baptism cleared the poison from my system altogether.
On the sixth day everyone carried out the simple devotions that marked the religious observances of these people, much after the fashion of those I had witnessed in the argenter
Four days after that I was strong enough to insist on being given my sword and chopping wood. I noticed how I had to make a conscious physical effort to slash through branches that normally I would have cut through with a supple twist of wrist and forearm. But I persevered. The people had told me that the rescued prisoners on the beach were not likely to be interfered with; all that area had been slaved out and the aragorn or the slave- masters no longer went there.
The island, I learned, was called Valka. Valka had been the name taken by an oar-slave who had been a good companion with me in the swordships. The nearest way of explaining his use of the name — for he came from the main island of Vallia — is to suggest that a man from California might choose the name of Tex as an alias.
I donned my Savanti hunting leathers.
There seems little point in belaboring my feelings at this time. You will know something of the kind of man I am; inaction in times of peril is anathema to me. I resent an insult, and if a man seeks to kill me I own to the moral weakness, thoroughly reprehensible, of attempting to kill him first. I chopped a great deal of wood in the next few days, swinging my sword arm, using my left arm, also, working the sinews and muscles, feeling the jolting power of the sword blows. What Maspero, that gentle man who had been my tutor, would say, I did not know. He swung a sword, complaining of his own weakness, also. But the swords the Savanti use in their sport deliver a psychic blow
