The Honorable Barbarian

by L. Sprague De Camp

  Crouching, Kerin scuttled along the path inside the wall, past flower beds whose blossoms would have shown a blaze of color by day but which now displayed only shades of gray. When the corner of the temple cut off the view of the entrance, he rose and trotted towards the building, the coiled rope on his shoulder swaying and bumping against his boots.

  As he neared the structure, Kerin thanked his Novarian gods he had not undertaken to climb the masonry, which provided hardly any handholds. Around the ground floor, interrupted at intervals by windows, ran a frieze of dancing girls holding arms in angular poses; but the relief was too low to afford a grip. The second story was largely occupied by shuttered windows. Above it, the window of the tower room showed yellow candlelight around the edges of the shutters.

  Kerin dropped his rope on a flower bed, grinning at the thought of how his mother would carry on if someone so abused her flowers. He straightened out the coil, making sure there were no tangles. Sounds of dispute still wafted from the further side of the temple, mingled with the whine of mosquitoes. Kerin raced through the spell, muttering and making passes.

  For an instant nothing happened. Kerin wondered if he had missaid a syllable or scanted a gesture. Then the upper end of the coil arose, like a monstrous serpent rearing to strike. The end went up and up.

  When all but the final turn of the coil had risen, the cable halted. Kerin took deep breaths to store up energy, sprang up, seized the rope, and locked his legs about it. Foot by foot, he rose past the ground-floor frieze; his lace came close to the oversized stone breasts of a dancing girl on the sculpture. He paused to slap a mosquito on his cheek and resumed his climb. The clamor from the entrance came but faintly.

  Kerin rose past the shuttered second-story windows. Golden gleams from within escaped around the shutters' edges; as Kerin's position shifted, the rope beneath him swayed.

  As he reached the tower-room level, he realized that the tower was smaller in plan than the lower stories. Hence, at this level, he found the window a good eight feet away.

  Kerin thought. By swaying from side to side, he set up a rhythmic oscillation in the rope, as if it were the trunk of a sapling. Wider and wider he swung, but he could not bring himself within reach of the window.

  He pulled out his sword and resumed his swinging. When a totter brought him close, he rapped on the shutters with the sword. He did this again on the following swing.

  The shutters opened, shedding candlelight. Salimorese windows had no glass panes; only wooden shutters. A shadow occluded the light as Nogiri appeared, saying:

  "Who—what—Master Kerin! What do you?"

  "Keep your voice down!" snapped Kerin, edgy with tension. "I'm getting you out."

  "Wherefore? Have the priests an evil intention?"

  "Human sacrifice to some evil god or other, with you as the offering. As I swing towards you, catch my blade and pull me in—nay, first get a cloth to seize the blade, lest it cut you."

  Nogiri disappeared; Kerin glimpsed a pile of furniture against the door before she returned with a towel. When a swing brought his blade within reach, she caught it and pulled, until Kerin could grip the edge of a shutter.

  "If I could hold the rope up against your window, couldst climb down it?" he asked.

  "I know not. I climbed trees a-plenty as a girl, but this . . ."

  "To hold the rope in place—is there aught in your chamber to serve as a cord?" Kerin silently berated himself for not thinking to bring such a cord with him. She said:

  "With your sword or dagger, I could cut ropes from beneath the bed. Oh, oh, something is up!"

  The noise from the front portal waxed in volume, and then came a trampling and a knock on Nogiri's door. "Princess!" cried a voice. "Open! Admit us!"

  "Delay them!" said Kerin.

  Nogiri called back: "Wait an instant, sirs. I must make myself decent."

  "Never mind that!" said the voice. "Open forthwith!" The door boomed to blows of increasing force.

  "No time to cut ropes now," said Kerin.

  "Lower yourself as far as you can whilst holding the shutter," said Nogiri. "I shall seize the rope above you. . . . Oh, plague! I can never climb down in this skirt."

  The battering increased; the door began to yield. Nogiri whipped off her sarong, wadded it into a ball, and threw it out past Kerin, who was trying to sheathe his sword with one hand. His point repeatedly missed the mouth of the scabbard, which jutted awkwardly out behind him.

  "Throw your sword!" she said.

  Kerin tossed away his sword and lowered himself as far as he could and still hold the shutter. Naked, Nogiri climbed to the window sill and swung out on the rope.

  "Ouch!" said Kerin as her bare toe poked him in the eye.

  As he released his grip on the shutter, the rope swayed dizzily outward. He lowered himself hand over hand, while above him Nogiri descended more slowly.

  When Kerin's feet were a man-height from the ground, he let go and came down in a crouch, as he had in farmer Eomer's barn. He picked up his sword and sheathed it as Nogiri reached the ground and snatched up her skirt. Above, the door of Nogiri's room crashed open. Shouts and tramplings seemed to come from all directions. When Nogiri started to wrap herself in her skirt, Kerin said:

  "Later! Run!"

  Grasping her hand, he dragged her towards the gate. He saw no sign of Klung; but as the principal portal came into view, Kerin sighted a group of priests and temple guardsmen running through the flower beds after the simulacrum. Keeping just ahead of the mob, the doublegoer shouted taunts.

  Pwana stood in the temple doorway, screaming: "Leave off! Pursue not that phantom! Come back!" Sighting Kerin and Nogiri, he pointed and shrieked: "There they go! Behold your quarry!"

  The fugitives ran through the gate, which Kerin slammed behind them. Nogiri panted: "Whither away?"

  "To the Kuromonian ship. What's the quickest way?"

  "I can lose them in the alleys. Come on!"

  Trailing her sarong, Nogiri ran ahead of Kerin. She led him along a street sloping down to the waterfront as the pursuers burst out of the gate behind them. Instead of continuing straight on, Nogiri took Kerin into a crooked side street, then zigzagged through a maze of alleys. The crescent moon had set, so that Kerin stumbled through the darkness. Only Nogiri's guidance saved him from tripping and falling or barging into walls.

  Although few roamed abroad at night in Kwatna, the Salimorese they passed regarded them with amazement. When sounds of pursuit died out, Nogiri halted, panting:

  "Pray, let me—catch—my breath."

  "I could use a breath, too," gasped Kerin. "Whither lie the Kuromonian ships? You've lost me."

  She pointed. "Thither, methinks. First let me . . ."

  She started to wrap the sarong again when Belinka's tiny voice came from above: "Master Kerin! Flee instanter! They have picked up your trail with the help of a spirit!"

  Sounds of pursuit rose above the general level of nocturnal urban noises. "Come on!" said Kerin.

  They raced off. After several turns, they came out on the waterfront a few ship-lengths from the Tukara Mora's quay. They ran towards the ship. Before they reached it, a man in the uniform of Pwana's temple guards emerged from a smaller street and approached them, waving a kris and shouting:

  "Halt! Ye are my prisoners!"

  "Stand aside!" said Kerin, drawing his sword.

  "Foreign scum!" said the guard, advancing and winding up for a slash.

  Kerin drew his feet together and extended his sword to the fullest. The simple stop-thrust, which Jorian had drilled into him, caused the onrushing guard to impale himself on Kerin's point, which entered his chest while his sword hand was still above his shoulder and his blade extended out behind him. The guardsman checked his rush, staring cross-eyed down at the blade as if he could not believe his eyes.

  Kerin jerked out his blade, grabbed Nogiri's hand, and ran on to the Tukara Mora. To his dismay, the gangplank was not out, as the Kuromonians had promised. Inst
ead, the ship sat in her dock with her nearer gunwale six feet from the quay. A downward glance showed dark water lapping gently; also that the ship was held away from the quay by poles lashed fore and aft.

  "Canst jump it?" Kerin asked."Aye, methinks. Let go!"

  She ran back a few paces, sprinted, and leaped from the edge of the quay. A pale shape in the darkness, she soared over the gap, came down on the rail, and sprawled on the deck. A deck guard, one of the Tukara Mora's marines, shouted and pointed.

  The temple guard had folded up on the cobblestones, but more pursuers poured out of a side street. Other Kwatnans issued from houses to see the cause of the disturbance.

  Kerin threw his sword like a javelin, so that the point came down on the deck and the blade stood upright, swaying. He backed and ran to the ship. Like Nogiri, he took off at the edge of the masonry. But he failed by a finger's breadth to clear the rail. His boot slipped on the gunwale; he grabbed at the rail, missed, and fell fifteen feet into slimy harbor water.

  Sputtering and coughing, he struggled to the surface. Weighed down by dagger, scabbard, and money belt, he found it all he could do to keep his nose out of water. Overhead a furious dispute broke out between the pursuers and the crew of the Tukara Mora, who had come boiling out of their quarters.

  Kerin spat water and called: "Ahoy the ship! Throw a rope!"

  "There he is!" yelled a pursuer from the temple. "Who has a bow?"

  Another man lay down on the cobblestones at the edge of the quay and struck at Kerin with his kris but could not quite reach him.

  "Throw your sword!" said a voice.

  "What, lose my good sword? Be not absurd!"

  "Who has something to throw?" shouted a voice.

  The yammer rose. Something struck the water near Kerin with a splash; drops sprayed over him.

  "Missed!" shouted another. "Pry up one more, yarely!"

  They were throwing cobblestones. Thinking the further side of the ship were safer, Kerin struggled towards the ship's nearer end. More cobbles splashed. One struck his head a glancing blow, cushioned by his turban. He dizzily doubled his efforts and presently rounded the bow. When he could get his mouth above water, he shouted:

  "Where is a rope?"

  At last a rope splashed into the water nearby. Kerin seized it and was pulled up to the deck. He found a dozen Kuromonian sailors, directed by Second Mate Togaru, hauling on the rope. Beside the officer stood Nogiri, now wearing her sarong. Along the port rail stood a row of Kuromonian marines bearing pole arms of a Far Eastern pattern, with long, curved blades at the end of their shafts. Novarians called such a weapon a fauchard. The blades were straight enough for thrusting but broad and curved enough to slash with. These men faced shoreward and traded shouts and threats with the priests and guards from the Temple of Bautong, clustered on the quay.

  "Master Kerin, is it not?" said Second Mate Togaru.

  Dripping and coughing water, Kerin replied: "Aye. Methought you'd leave the gangplank out for us?"

  "It was tomorrow night you said you might board in haste."

  Kerin clapped a hand to his forehead. "So it was! I had no chance to tell you of the change of plan."

  "I see," said Togaru. "Now tell me what betides! By the divine bureaucrats, in all my years at sea, never have I seen a naked woman leap aboard at midnight. Those ashore wish to deliver you up to justice for having stolen this woman, who they say was the temple's property, and for having wounded one of their men pursuing you."

  " 'Twas simple self-defense. I'm sure you can find a crewman who saw the fellow attack me. As for the Princess Nogiri, she is kin to the Sophi and they were about to kill her. Besides, you would not wish to lose two paying passengers, would you?"

  Togaru bowed to Nogiri, saying: "Your Highness." He allowed himself the flicker of a smile. "I will speak to the captain. Meanwhile, you may hie yourself to your cabin to dry. Certes, we will not allow that mob on our decks, which are Kuromonian sovran territory."

  The pursuers were straggling off when Togaru told a breechclouted deckhand to show the passengers to their cabins. The deckhand bowed to the officer, bowed again to Kerin, and led the passengers to the forward hatch and down the ladder. Kerin, who had recovered his sword, and Nogiri followed the sailor to the cabin deck.

  The sailor disappeared into a cabin and emerged with a lighted taper. He entered one of the two larger cabins at the end of the deck, lit a small bronze lamp hanging from above, and bowed Kerin and Nogiri in.

  Nogiri looked at the bed. "It seems a little narrow for two, but I can make do on the floor."

  "Not at all," said Kerin. "This is your own exclusive cabin. I shall bunk with the Reverend Tsemben in Number Eighteen."

  She looked amazed. "Oh, but Master Kerin! That would be entirely against custom! Why should a rankless woman like me have this grand cabin all to myself? Dost find me repulsive or stinking?"

  "Good gods, no! But as a princess—"

  "Oh, forget the princess!" she said with a flash of irritation. "Since mine uncle sold me, I am no more than a commoner of the lowest class—a mere thing. In Salimor, a woman's rank derives from her family. Since my family has cast me off, I have no rank. And since you have taken me from the temple, whither I would not willingly return, I am your chattel, concubine, slave, or whatever pleases you."

  "Well!" said Kerin. "I never meant to—to consider you as aught but a friend. Could I restore your rank by freeing you?"

  "Only my family could make me a princess again, and I expect that not. If you cast me off, any ruffian could seize me. That is the way of things."

  "Well, let's not tell the Kuromonians. If they think you're a princess, 'twill get us better treatment." He sneezed.

  She said: "Master Kerin, off with those sodden garments ere you catch your death of cold!"

  Hardened to Salimorese indifference to nudity, Kerin began to strip, saying: "So no more of this 'I am your humble doormat' thing. Second Mate Togaru seems to take your rank at its titular worth."

  "I will take care." Having vigorously scrubbed Kerin with the cabin's towel, she gathered up his dripping clothes. "I'll fasten these things up to dry." She went out, leaving Kerin sitting on the stool."Master Kerin!" squeaked Belinka. The little blue light danced in the lantern's beams. "Leaping aboard ships at night is evidently not your greatest skill. Remember what befell on the Benduan?"

  "You need not remind me," growled Kerin.

  "Well, I see you entertain lustful thoughts towards Mistress Nogiri."

  "How know you?"

  "I am not blind. You think, when she return, you'll ask her to be your concubine in fact. Then you think to test the cordage under yon bed."

  "Rubbish! You know I shall sleep in Number Eighteen."

  "Oh, doubtless—but after you have enjoyed Mistress Nogiri's embraces here."

  "What if I did?" demanded Kerin angrily.

  "You shall not! I forbid!"

  "By Imbal's iron pizzle! Who are you to tell me whom to futter?"

  "Madame Erwina's familiar, that's who; and I am straitly charged to save your virtue for Adeliza!"

  "To the frigid hells with Adeliza! I'll do whatever—yeow!" Kerin sprang erect, clapping a hand to his bare buttock. "Curse you, that hurt!"

  "And I'll hurt worse if you try to bed your brown barbarian! You'll afford a juicy target!"

  "Not if I'm under a blanket!"

  "I can sting through a blanket. If you believe me not, wrap yourself in yon quilt!"

  Kerin seethed with turmoil. Muttering curses, he wrapped himself in the cabin's blanket. He had worked up the courage to ask, as Belinka put it, Nogiri to be his concubine in fact. To do so, he had to overcome a violent seizure of embarrassment. Belinka's opposition made him all the more determined; on the other hand he feared that the threat of being stung would cause more than his spirits to droop at a critical time. If only he could imprison this meddlesome sprite in a bottle. . . .

  Nogiri reentered, saying: "Your clothes now hang on one of
those ropes that steadies the mast. But Master Kerin, wherefore have you wrapped yourself in my blanket? I thought you ready for bed. Since that bed be narrow for two, why not drag in the pallet from your other cabin?"

  "Well—ah-but . . ."

  "Why, wouldst fain not exercise your rights tonight? I am ready."

  Kerin squirmed with embarrassment. He eyed Nogiri hungrily; but it would only have added to his shame to admit that he had let Belinka bully him out of his intentions. He did not see the dancing blue light; but Belinka could make herself completely invisible.

  At last he said: "Well—ah—there are two reasons, my dear. First, as you say, it is late and I am more than a little tired, after climbing that magical rope, snatching you from the evil priests, skewering the man who tried to halt us, and swimming about that stinking harbor."

  "Doubtless you know best," she said. "After witnessing your feats tonight, I had begun to think of you as some hero of legend, immune to fatigue."

  Kerin waved a deprecatory hand. "So it might seem; but I should have perished many times had not Elidora cast her mantle about me."

  "What? Who is Elidora?"

  "Our Novarian goddess of luck. A hero of legend would not have fallen into the harbor; nor would he have forgotten to carry the magical rope away. Klung will rue its loss."

  "And the other reason?"

  "If we are to bolster the Kuromonians' belief that you are in fact a princess, it follows that you must have the cabin to yourself, as any royal person would."

  "True," she said with a thoughtful frown. "Kuromonians, I hear, are even fussier about rank and status than my own folk. At home they spend their time insulting their inferiors and fawning upon their superiors, trying to inch their way up the ladder of rank. They have a curious system whereby men of low birth can rise into the mandarin class of officials by passing written examinations."

  "That sounds interesting," said Kerin.

  "Belike; but it means that such persons, having a hope of rising, commit any sort of corruption or chicanery to enable them to do so. Amongst us the classes, being fixed, are more resigned to their lot and hence live in greater harmony.''