Great metal and polished wooden platters piled high with smoking meat, baskets of breads and fruits, and cauldrons of pungent soup filled the tables to overflowing. Light came from huge, thigh-thick candles set on posts around the table. He took notice of the controlled war that took the place of plate-passing and reflected wryly that no one would put candles on the table for risk of total conflagration over a stuffed olive, or whatever those little green things were.
In addition, light came from baskets of oil burning in wrought-iron cups set into the walls. And the great fireplace sported a blaze that would have violated every fire regulation a humanx hotel manager could envision.
His own plate was wide and formed of some coppery material. He also had a cloth napkin not quite as big as a two-man tent and a knife more suitable for a cavalry charge than a dinner.
In spite of some lingering hesitancy over the alien cuisine, his mouth was beginning to water. At least, between his furs and the fire, it wouldn't freeze.
Next to him, September was gnawing happily on a meat laden bone with all the delicacy and comportment of a famished hyena. He nudged Ethan in the ribs, gently this time.
“Dig in, young feller. By the Dying Dead Red, these people know how to cook.”
“Pardon me if I don't share your enthusiasm. It's my tender unbringing and respectable charge account holding me back.” He turned to his other side.
Williams was nibbling absently on something that looked like a cross between a carrot and a stick of emergency space protein. Next to him, Walther seemed to be displaying about the same amount of gusto in downing his meal.
Across the table, Hellespont du Kane was doing his best with a pair of knives to slice some meat from a small bone for both himself and Colette. The meat stayed off his clothes. Also off his plate.
Ethan looked around, then reached uptable for something that resembled corned beef but could just as easily have been the pickled liver of a pregnant krokim. Nonetheless, it looked inviting and smelled better. A knife came down and just missed his fingers. It was wielded by a rangy tran several seats up from them. The native gave him a good natured closed-mouth grin and carved off a choice portion for himself.
Ethan gritted his teeth, half-closed his eyes, and made a long-range stab with his own knife. When in Rome-Vatican... Surprisingly, he came back with the rest of the roast, or whatever it was, and nobody's hand.
Two good-sized tankards sat in front of his plate. The meat, he discovered, had a flavor like roast pork, although it was more heavily seasoned than he'd expected. It certainly wasn't bland.
He tried the larger tankard and found that it contained a drink like thick hot chocolate with a faint hint of pepper.
He almost choked on it when September let out a whoop and clobbered him with a flying elbow. He thrust his own small tankard at Ethan and his eyes sparkled. “Now here, young feller-me-lad, is something worth fighting to preserve. Put some of this liquid starlight into your gullet. The thranx themselves never brewed half so good!” He turned and bellowed something to Hunnar.
Ethan stared at his own small tankard with a mixture of lust and terror, chewing slowly on some indefinable vegetable. He picked it up and peered inside. The contents were dark and had a startling silver color.
“Called Reedle,” September informed him. “reedle-dedeedle-de...” he sang as Ethan hesitantly put metal to lips.
It went easily down his throat and into his stomach. There it must have encountered something flammable, because it burst like a stretched bubble and spewed tiny fireballs all over the place. One of them crawled right back up his throat and burned itself to a miniscule cinder right between his eyes. He let out a long whoosh.
“Reed ... raw ... reedle, huh?” September didn't answer him. He was otherwise engaged, mentally. Shortly thereafter, Ethan was too.
A little while later he noticed a cloying sweetness in the air. It wasn't a by-product of his dinner. Instead he discovered it emanated from several of the rather provocatively clad ladies seated nearby. The tran used perfume, then. Interesting. By Terran standards it was pretty crude stuff. By thranx standards it was a total loss. Here was another opportunity for trade, olfactory desires being equal.
For the hundredth — or maybe it was the thousandth time, he lamented the loss of his goods, out of reach on board the Antares. He took another gulp of reedle and turned his concentration to the more interesting types seated at the great table.
Eventually his eyes traveled to the far corner of the U and to Darmuka Brownoak. The prefect was well into his own meal. He appeared to be enjoying it without becoming overexuberant or soused. Mostly he was smiling and nodding at the shouts and comments of those seated around him. A cool, sharp, dangerous customer, Ethan reflected.
His gaze continued around the table and was startled to encounter a pair of glowing yellow eyes staring back into his own. They belonged to a beautiful, overpowering, hirsute valkyrie named Elfa.
Great credit! He'd almost managed to wipe his distressing — well, awkward — encounter with the Landgrave's daughter from his mind. Hurriedly he averted his eyes and concentrated with full attention on dissecting a second chop — “vol,” Hunnar had called it.
He was on his third helping and second tankard of reedle when Sir Hunnar rose abruptly and bounded onto his seat. Ethan poked September, who'd subsumed enough reedle to float an elephant, and whispered across to the du Kanes.
“Now's the time. Don't do anything or say anything even if provoked. Brownoak and his cronies will be looking for the slightest opening.”
Hunnar put both paws in the air. Gradually the roar and howling subsided to a steady murmur, a grinding like surf on gravel. When it dropped further, to where a single voice could be heard easily, he began.
“So. Here you sit. The pride of Sofold. The wealth of its minds, the deciders of its fate, arbitrators of destiny. Pagh!” He spat. “You collective dung-heaps! Offsprings of vols! Hoppers. Gleaners of lavatories!”
Angry murmurings swelled around him. There were a few cries in Trannish of “Bring him down!”
“Oh, you claim to be otherwise, eh?” Hunnar continued. “While we sit gorging our fat selves, at this moment the Horde moves on its trail of slime and blood to visit our homes. Yes, the Horde comes. Like it or not, the Horde comes. Straight as the path of a thunder-eater grazing, the Horde comes... What will happen when it reaches us? Will you sit and laugh so heartily, merrily, then? When your purses are emptied and your daughters filled? What then?”
An old tran rose halfway out of his seat across the table.
“We will pay our assigned levy, as we always have, Sir Hunnar, take a few weeks of misery and burden, as we always have, and survive, as we always have!”
Hunnar whirled and faced the oldster. “He does not ‘survive’ who lives on the sufferance and humor of another. What if this time our offerings should not satisfy the Death, eh? What if ill humor should visit Sagyanak in the night and tell him to raze Wannome to the earth-ice? For pleasure, mayhap. Burn the fields and towns of Sofold, for amusement? What then of your ‘survival,’ old man?”
“My!” interrupted a familiar, penetrating voice from across the table. “Don't berate poor Nalhagen,” continued Darmuka Brownoak easily. The prefect paused, took a tiny sip from his tankard of reedle. It was quite enough in the great hall for Ethan to hear the container hit the table gently as the prefect set it down. Some things, Ethan reflected, were the same from planet to planet. On the surface, this was a conflict of philosophy. In reality it came down to a battle of wills between young and old, between the rich and content and the talented and impatient. Everyone in the hall knew it. They waited to see what would develop.
“He only wants to live, like the rest of us. Most of us, anyway.” Brownoak glanced around the table and there was a murmur of assent from the crowd. “Why,” the prefect continued, “such a thing as you postulate has not happened in the hundreds of years of Sofoldian history. Why would Sagyanak have reason to d
o such a thing now?” His stare was one of profound amazement. “To destroy Wannome and Sofold would be to destroy forever the tribute the Horde receives from us at regular intervals. Would the Scourge cut out the bottom of their purse?”
“They have done this to other towns,” Hunnar said.
“But never to Wannome.”
“So we continue to dig our noses in the dirt, year upon year, to gratify this monster?” the knight snorted. “I say no longer. Fight, this time!” He opened his claws and made tearing motions at the other. “Fight once, and have done with ignominy and hardship forever!”
“I think I should agree with you in that,” said Brownoak.
“What?” Hunnar was taken aback.
“If,” the prefect continued, daintily wiping his mouth with one of the rag-napkins, “I did not dislike suicide. Indeed, we would ‘have done with it.’ You and I would be no more. Truly, death would end ignominy and hardship, but I am not anxious to employ such a solution yet. I'm as brave as the next man,” and he glared sharply up at Hunnar, “but I am also a thoughtful being and a pragmatist. We would be outnumbered many times by a foe whose whole life is spent not in trading and growing, mailing and crafting, but in killing and fighting. We'd have as much chance of winning as a hopper caught in the path of a stampeding thunder-eater.”
Hunnar countered instantly. “In spite of what you may think, prefect, I too am a thoughtful person, and I say we would win. The walls of Wannome have grown too high for the Horde to scale, too thick for the Horde to break, these past years. Nor could they breach the nets and the new chain that guards the harbor entrance.”
“What of a siege?” asked Brownoak, sipping reedle.
“With a little preparation we could stand such far longer than they. No barbarian can sit on his haunches and stare placidly at his enemy. He is not mentally equipped for it. Sagyanak's own tribesmen would throw out any leader who ordered such. The Scourge knows that as well as you or I.”
“You say all this,” came a flat voice from uptable. A middle-aged tran with a short steel-wool beard looked up at Hunnar. “Yet you are but a cub compared to most of us, risen rapidly in the ranks of his elders. If you are the thoughtful one you claim, you can see my point. Why should we agree with you, a mere youngster? How much of your declaration is fueled by ambition and youthful impatience rather than careful reason?”
“Because I—” Hunnar began, but he was interrupted.
“I will have none of that, Hellort,” rumbled an abyssal voice from down the table.
The tran who rose was stocky — no, even short — by tran standards, but so massively built that he was almost square. The powerful torso was bent and knotted with age. But the voice was like a scalpel in a field of butter knives. Tiny slit black pupils peered out of bony eaves from beneath overhanging brows. The tran was all smashed and crumpled, almost deformed.
“I meant nothing insulting,” apologized Hellort quietly. “I've no questioning with you, Balavere.”
Ethan peered at the other more intently, not caring that he was staring. This, then, was the famous Balavere Longax, the most respected military man in Wannome. From Hunnar's brief description of him Ethan had expected a giant, not a blocky dwarf. But the tran general was clearly a giant in ways other than physical.
“Yes, you do, Hellort. Because, you see, I too have considered this question painfully. I find myself in agreement with the good Redbeard — his youth notwithstanding. He may appear impetuous. Do not perceive that as ambition. He has a sound military head on his shoulders, yes, and moves smoothly over difficult ice.
“Sofold is the strongest province in the area,” he continued pridefully. “If any can make a decisive stand against the Horde, 'tis we. It should be Sofold. But we must do this thing on our own. No one — not Phulos-tervo of Ayhus nor VegTuteva of Meckleven — will send a single soldier from his land to aid us, for fear of their being recognized and invoking the wrath of Sagyanak.”
“Are you so confident of victory, then?” broke in Brownoak.
“Of course I am not confident of victory,” the general replied softly. “I will not lie to you, sirs. A battle of such magnitude contains too many uncertainties. No intelligent soldier would venture a prediction on the outcome. But I say this,” he continued, as the prefect seemed ready to add more, “I've seen Wannome rise and strengthen over these last few good years. Dangerously so, and Sagyanak should realize it. There is your reason for bringing us down, at least a little. But the Horde has grown fat and lazy on tribute. They've not fought a real battle in some time.”
“And we also will have the aid of the strangers from the stars,” added Hunnar, “for who can believe their coming at this crucial time to be accidental?”
A hundred pairs of slitted cat-eyes looked straight at Ethan. They all seemed to be focused on a point just below his hair. He wanted to reach up and scratch the place but didn't dare. He squirmed a little, though. The crowd wavered.
“Strange in form, perhaps,” said the imperturbable, thrice damned Brownoak, “but not in ability. Perhaps less so, in fact. And ability is what we need, not cries of star-sent omens.”
“Ha!” said September. Ethan looked at him in surprise, as did many others. Which was the idea.
The big man put one foot on the table, stepped up, and walked across. He just missed a meat pie here, a tankard of reedle there. When he hopped down on the other side, every eye in the hall, human and tran, was focused on him.
Bending, he gripped the rear legs of Hunnar's chair. With a single, flowing motion, he lifted both knight and chair chest high off the floor. There was a gasp of surprise from the crowd. It was followed by a few cheers and a babble of excited conversation.
September put Hunnar down, recrossed the table, and resumed his seat.
“Quite an exhibition,” Ethan complimented.
“You could probably have managed it yourself, young feller-me-lad. I thought it worth doing. But Hunnar and I didn't have a chance to practice that in private. I'm glad the execution matched the theory. Would have looked awfully funny out there if I'd gone and tipped him over.” He took a long draught of reedle and smacked his lips. “Though he went up a lot easier than some folk I've hoisted. Now, if I'd dropped him...”
Ethan didn't mention that he thought September probably could have made the lift even if the tran knight weighed as much as a human of similar size. Someone up by the Landgrave was waving for attention. It was Eer-Meesach.
“I can say,” intoned the wizard in strong voice, “that among these strangers is also a being of great knowledge. A wizard equal to ... well, nearly equal to ... my own person in powers of intellect.” He pointed dramatically down the table.
“Stand up, Williams, dammit,” September mumbled around the lip of his tankard. The schoolmaster rose quickly and stood staring at the table, looking for all the world like a kid caught snitching at the cookie jar. He sat down almost instantly.
“And there are others among them of abilities even more astounding,” continued Hunnar excitedly, “all pledged to assist us in this holy endeavor!”
“What's he talking about?” asked du Kane from across the table. “I've picked up a bit of the language, but not enough to translate what he's raving an about.”
“He's telling everyone how terrific we are,” said Ethan absently, trying to concentrate an Hunnar's speech.
“Oh.” said the industrialist. He leaned back, looking satisfied. Ethan decided the tran could interpret that as overwhelming confidence.
“I am not so convinced,” began Darmuka Brownoak, but Hunnar talked him down.
“A hosing, a loosing, then!” The cry was picked up, carried around the table like sherbet.
“Yes ... now time ... fight ... but if we should lose? ... weapons? ... how much time? ... family ... a loosing!” eventually the Laudgrave stood. There was immediate and respectful silence in the great hall.
“A proposal of grave consequence has been put to this gathering. Councilmen and
knights of Sofold, the call has been made for a loosing. Whatever else can be said, it is sure there is enough interest for such. I so call it.”
“Is this loosing like taking a vote?” Ethan queried September.
“That's it, me lad. You pledge your booze, is what.” He grinned. “That's serious. My kind of folk.”
The Landgrave picked up his chalice. He held it at arm's length, ramrod straight away from his body. Everyone stood and did likewise, including the ladies, Ethan noted. The little band of humans was tardy in copying the gesture, but no one seemed to mind.
“We have no vote in this, of course,” September told them, “but we can participate. It looks better that way.”
Into the silence the Landgrave said, “So that each may know of his neighbor...”
At that, September and a large number of the assembled dignitaries inverted their tankards, spilling magnificent reedle over table, food, floor, boots, and selves. The other humans did likewise a second later.
A herald had wheeled a high chair to the right of the Landgrave. Now he began a slow count, but Hunnar had started ahead of him. Before the herald could finish, the knight roared with joy and threw his tankard clear to the beams of the vaulted ceiling.
“WE FIGHT!” he bellowed.
The cry was picked up by dozens of throats. “We fight, we fightl” Hunnar ran and embraced old Balavere. Then everything degenerated into a confusing, heaving mass of hairy bodies, sharp questions, and endless toasts. The musicians added to the erumpent revelry with a sprightly semi-martial tune. A few tran moved into the U and began dancing. Others seemed intent on flattening their companions with crippling slams to the shoulders.
In the noise and confusion, Brownoak rose and said something to the Landgrave. A frozen smile on his face, he retired. Those tran who had been seated close to him accompanied the prefect in exit. In the explosion of congratulations and excitement hardly anyone noticed their withdrawal.
Ethan finally succeeded in drawing Hunnar's attention. He pointed out the prefect's abrupt departure.
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