The Trials of Lance Eliot

by M. L. Brown

  I thanked Kana, yawned and inquired about bed. He led me to a bedroom down the hall and wished me a good night. I returned the wish exuberantly, like a tennis player returning a hard serve, and entered the bedroom. A lamp stood upon a bureau, casting just enough light to make out the dim shapes of a bed and a wardrobe. Too tired to undress, I collapsed onto the bed, burrowed beneath the blankets and fell asleep.

  Not for an instant did I suspect I might be poised upon the very brink of an adventure. I wouldn’t have slept well if I had.

  4

  LANCE ELIOT BECOMES A LEGIONARY

  I RETURNED TO CONSCIOUSNESS under a mountain of silk sheets and woolen blankets. It took a minute to remember where I was. It took several more to sort through the jumbled memories of the day before and assemble them in proper order. I was in no hurry. At last I summoned my strength and crawled out of bed.

  The room was filled with light. Golden cataracts of sunshine poured through the windows and filled the room with drowsy warmth. The bureau and wardrobe were there, gleaming in the sunlight, and a desk and chair beside them. A mirror hung over the desk. I looked into it. A pale face looked back, stubble on its cheeks and shadows under its eyes. I decided a wash and a shave were in order.

  A slab of green soap, a razor and a basin of water lay upon the bureau. Though the water was cold, I worked the soap into lather and zealously plied the razor. Upon restoring my resemblance to a respectable human being, I began the search for clean clothes. The wardrobe yielded an astonishing assortment of trousers, socks, silk shirts, cotton underclothes, wool jackets, cloth caps, leather shoes and boots. I selected a set of clothes and changed, leaving my old clothes in a heap on the floor.

  I yearned for buttered toast and hot coffee. Sallying forth from my room, I descended a flight of stairs and found myself in the parlor. A grandfather clock stood against the wall. I stared at it for a moment in surprise. Though it felt much later, it was only eight o’clock.

  I walked to the window and looked out into the garden. The air was fresh and clean. Bees moseyed through the flowerbeds. I might have stood there a long time, elbows on the windowsill, if I hadn’t heard someone cough. I started and whirled around. The sound was exactly like the Skeleton’s cough. For a second I felt a wild fear that my professor had followed me to Gea.

  The butler with the bushy eyebrows stood before me.

  “Breakfast is served, sir.”

  We entered the dining room to a glorious sight. A long table was laden with enough food for a dozen men: bread and fruit and boiled eggs and shapeless white things that turned out to be rice dumplings. At the end of the table were a pot of black coffee crowned with white steam and a black gentleman crowned with white hair. He smiled as I entered.

  “Good morning,” he said in a smooth, slow voice. “Please sit down and eat.”

  Taking a seat next to the old gentleman, I leaned forward to smell the coffee. Its fragrance knocked me back into the chair. “What in Tartarus is this stuff?” I choked.

  “Blackroot,” he said placidly. “No better way to start the day than a cup of blackroot.”

  “Not coffee?”

  “Coffee? In all my years I’ve never heard of anything by that name.”

  I was distraught. A month was a long time to go without coffee. On the other hand, I seldom enjoyed such excellent food for breakfast. My breakfasts in Oxford generally consisted of cold porridge. Somewhat consoled, I began to butter a piece of bread. “I’m Lance Eliot,” I said, reaching for the jam jar.

  “I know,” said the old gentleman. “Kana told me about you. I am Tamu Baba, the benefactor of his Resistance.”

  I was reminded of the horrors threatening Rovenia and suppressed a shudder. “I’m glad to meet you,” I said.

  “I am honored to have you in my home.” He snapped his fingers. “That reminds me. Roderick, bring the pouch on the front table.”

  The butler vanished like a mist and reappeared with a cloth bag.

  “Give it to our guest,” instructed Tamu. “Your allowance,” he said as the butler placed the heavy pouch in my hands. “To be spent at your convenience.”

  I thanked him and set it next to the dumplings.

  “You are free to do as you will,” he said. “There are only a few conditions.”

  “Conditions?”

  “Kana asked me to inform you that murder, theft, arson, rape, assault, Necromancy, kidnapping, public indecency and destruction of property are forbidden by the laws of the city.”

  “I should hope so. Does he think I’m liable to do any of these things?”

  “Not in the least. We simply don’t want you to commit a crime unintentionally. How can we be sure the laws of your world are like our laws?”

  “I think rape and murder are universally frowned upon,” I said. “I won’t commit any crimes. You have my word.”

  My word was enough for the old gentleman, and conversation turned to other things. I learned that his wife had died years before of an unstoppable malignancy (which I presumed to be cancer) and his daughter had been killed in a Nomen raid soon after. “Now it’s just me and my servants,” he said. “I’m fond of them, you know, but they aren’t family.”

  Tamu was a pleasant fellow. I think my presence in the household lifted his spirits. He was also remarkably generous, going so far as to offer his butler as a guide round the city. The butler looked alarmed at this offer. I spared us both by declining as politely as I could.

  I spent the day wandering the city alone. Though I had hoped to see Maia again, she was nowhere to be found. I soon realized exploring the city alone wasn’t one half as enjoyable as exploring it with a guide. It was enormous, and there were all sorts of places I had yet to see.

  The most interesting of these was a pillared stone building at the highest point of the city. It had few furnishings. There were no statues or tapestries, and what little furniture I saw was wrought of silver and brass. A smell of roasting meat pervaded the rooms. Men in white robes bustled hither and thither, some with books, others with lamps and firewood. I gaped when a man strode by with a bloodstained frock and a knife. It was then I realized precisely what was happening. I was in a temple of some kind, and the men in white robes were priests making sacrifices.

  I wandered around the temple a while longer (none of the priests seemed to mind) and came upon a room like a lecture hall. A priest stood behind a wooden stand, reading to a crowd out of a book. Not wanting to make a disturbance, I withdrew.

  I’ve always been captivated by the gods of Greek mythology. When I was a boy I named my cat Pallas Athena, reserving more pretentious names like Polyphemus and Poseidon for my goldfish. There was something thrilling in the idea of gods appointing heroes and weaving the fate of men. The temple with its priests and books fascinated me.

  My thoughts were pulled away from the temple by a building of a worldlier sort. Rows of metal tins in a shop window caught my eye, and I paused long enough to read the word Tobacco painted over the doorway in large letters. As I entered the shop, I was arrested by the warm fragrance of tobacco smoke. The smell was so familiar and homely that I almost wept.

  I left the shop with two pipes, a largish supply of tobacco and a steel igniter. Matches were apparently unknown in Rovenia, but the igniter was almost as convenient. It was a neat gadget that struck a piece of spring-loaded steel against a flint at the pull of a trigger, producing sparks. After packing a pipe with tobacco, I fumbled with the igniter until the pipe was lit, put the bit in my mouth, got the pipe to draw and inhaled a mouthful of the blessed smoke. It was like cool water to a man dying of thirst.

  Speaking of thirst, I should add that only one thing was left to complete my happiness. I soon found it. A little way down the street from the tobacco shop stood a building with large windows and a wide stone doorstep. Peering inside, I saw casks and bottles behind a bar.

  “A hot Scotch and lemon, please,” I said a moment later.

  The young lady behind the bar gave me an
odd look and said, “We don’t stock lemons in this season, and I don’t know what a Scotch is.”

  I was annoyed. Having been deprived by fate of one Scotch and lemon, I felt entitled to another. The lady behind the bar examined me thoughtfully. “You look like you’d fancy a good clanger.”

  “A what?”

  The lady assumed the tone of a professor tutoring a dull student. “A cocktail consisting of distilled rye liquor, dried bloodblossom petals and valeberry juice.”

  “I’ll try it,” I declared, placing a coin on the bar.

  I liked the clanger and said so. The barmaid suggested I try another cocktail, perhaps a sparkler. I liked the sparkler and said so. The barmaid slyly suggested a meal to keep my cocktails company, and before an hour had passed I was quite full. I paid my tab and left the bar. The drinks had drowned my desire to explore the city. I merely wanted to return to the house and lie down.

  Someone once wrote something about alcohol biting like a serpent and stinging like an adder. I solemnly testify that whatever chap wrote that knew his stuff. My clangers and sparklers bit and stung like a nest of serpents that night, and I descended to breakfast the following morning with dissipation stamped upon my face.

  Tamu didn’t seem to notice. “Good morning, Master Eliot,” he said. “Please sit down. Cup of blackroot?”

  “Please,” I said, hoping it would drive off my hangover. I softened the drink with honey and cream, and drank it in several long drafts. It was like drinking black pepper.

  “Did you enjoy the first day of your holiday?” asked Tamu when my coughing had subsided.

  “It was delightful,” I mumbled.

  About three-quarters of the way through breakfast, we were interrupted by the sound of marching feet. I moved to the window and peeped into the street. A unit of military men was passing the house.

  It was my first good look at Rovenian soldiers, and certainly not my last. They wore black tunics over jackets of steel mesh. Each soldier carried a thin, curved sword on his left side and a shorter sword in a scabbard on his back. Long daggers were strapped to their right thighs. Black trousers, sturdy belts, leather boots and steel-studded gauntlets completed their uniforms.

  Tamu joined me at the window. “Legionaries,” he said.

  I immediately thought of Beau Geste and the French Foreign Legion. “Don’t legionaries carry their gear and supplies with them?” I asked.

  “Only in the field,” he said, returning slowly to his chair. “The military keeps a police force in the cities. Legionaries on police duty don’t cumber themselves with unnecessary weight.”

  I imagined chasing a criminal with forty pounds of equipment on my back and conceded the point.

  “When not on police duty,” he continued, “legionaries wear helmets and leg guards in addition to their gear.”

  “Those legionaries serve the Resistance, right?”

  “The Rovenian Legion is in the service of Senshu, but the local branch has sworn loyalty to Kana. Brave souls, these legionaries. A friend of mine was a legionary, you know.”

  We finished breakfast. I had a second cup of blackroot and listened absently as Tamu told me about the Battle of the Bow, in which his legionary friend had rescued a wounded general from six enemy soldiers. At length I finished my blackroot, excused myself and repaired to the garden to keep the bees company. The sun was warm, the breeze was gentle and I was depressed.

  A month seemed like a long time to spend wandering around a city, even as large and interesting a city as Faurum. I wanted something to do. Any of my professors can testify that I’m not an industrious chap, but I didn’t want to spend my holiday doing nothing but drinking and smoking and sleeping late.

  My gloomy reflections were interrupted by a knock that echoed throughout the house. I waited for the butler to open the front door. He didn’t. The knock sounded again. Wondering what had become of the servants, I ran to the door and opened it.

  The man who stood upon the doorstep was quite short, but seemed taller because he stood so rigidly straight. A ramrod would have looked crooked by comparison. His eyes were serious, his mustache neatly trimmed and his mouth stern. It’s no exaggeration to say he hadn’t a single hair out of place. Everything about the man could be summed up in precisely one word: precision.

  He held out a piece of paper and said, “I’m here on behalf of General Shoukan. Please deliver this letter to Citizen Baba.”

  I took the paper without speaking. A thought had just come to me: a ridiculous, ludicrous, marvelous thought.

  The man turned to leave. “Wait a moment,” I cried.

  “May I be of service?”

  “I want to go to the military headquarters.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to join the Legion.”

  The man’s eyebrows raised about a tenth of an inch. “You want to join the Legion?”

  “I want to be a legionary,” I amended. “I suppose there’s a difference.”

  “Why do you want to be a legionary?”

  “For the thrill of it.”

  His eyebrows raised another tenth of an inch. “We don’t take recruitment lightly,” he said, and turned away.

  “My name is Lance Eliot,” I said. The man froze. “Kana may have mentioned me,” I continued. “I’m a guest of the Resistance. I don’t want to do any fighting, you see, but I want to learn how to fight.”

  His expression didn’t change, but I knew I had him in a bind. He couldn’t refuse the request of an honored guest. “Come with me,” he said.

  Leaving Tamu’s letter in the hands of the butler, who had finally appeared upon the scene, I followed the man as he crossed the street and began the descent to the military headquarters.

  You may be wondering why in blazes I should want to learn to fight. To repeat my answer: For the thrill of it. I’ve loved books since I was a child. My favorite stories were adventures, from the quests of Greek heroes to the escapades of brave men in the Great War.

  The best adventures had more than excitement and romance. Every good adventure had a hero: a person who saved companions or country or world in the face of overwhelming odds. No matter how powerful the evil, the hero stood and fought and prevailed, though all the tides of hell surged against him.

  My parents roared with laughter when I told them I wanted to be a hero when I grew up. When I had grown old enough to realize heroes were almost extinct, I settled for the next best thing: a literary critic. If I couldn’t be a hero, I thought, I could at least make a career of reading about them. Unfortunately, literary criticism didn’t fulfill my hopes. It’s impossible to dissect a specimen without killing it, you see. Literature loses its beauty when pulled apart by the cruel instruments of analysis and linguistic study.

  Now, when I found myself in the middle of an adventure, I could hardly resist the thrill of playing a hero.

  No, I reminded myself, not a hero. Heroes were the romantic inventions of idealistic storytellers. Reality demanded prudence and self-interest, not gallantry and self-sacrifice. I wouldn’t pretend to be a hero. However, with a month to spare, I could indulge my boyhood fantasy and learn to handle a sword like a real warrior.

  “We’re here,” said the man.

  We halted in front of the military headquarters, an imposing building with iron bars on the windows and guards before the doors. It looked like a prison. My enthusiasm vanished.

  “After you,” said the man.

  I swallowed twice, edged between the guards and entered the building. I found myself in an octagonal room hung with tapestries and paved with black marble. A secretary looked up and set down her pen as I approached her desk. My companion followed close behind, blocking all chance of escape.

  “Welcome to the headquarters of the Faurum Police and Militia,” said the secretary. “How may I help you?”

  “I would like to become a legionary,” I said.

  “The enlistment office is that way,” she replied, jabbing a finger toward a door on my left
.

  “I—I’m not enlisting, exactly,” I stammered. “May I speak with Kana Shoukan?”

  She shook her head. “The General is busy.”

  “I’m Lance Eliot,” I said, playing my trump card.

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  At this point my companion gave a soft, precise cough. “Lance Eliot is the guest of the Resistance,” he said.

  “This is the man Maia summoned?” asked the secretary, eyes wide. She leaned forward and inspected me with great interest. “He looks just like your cousin,” she concluded, speaking to my companion. “What was his name?”

  I made a cautious attempt to steer conversation in another direction. “Would it be possible for me to speak with General Shoukan?”

  The secretary leaned back and pulled a cord that hung along the wall. A bell rang somewhere in the depths of the building. I waited about a minute and then asked, “What now?”

  “We wait patiently,” said my companion.

  A door opened and Kana strode into the room. “Lance Eliot,” he exclaimed. “This is a surprise.”

  My companion fidgeted.

  “Is something wrong, Corporal Tarkka?” asked Kana.

  “Our guest demanded to be made a legionary,” replied my companion. It sounded more like a complaint than a statement of fact.

  “I think demanded is a bit strong,” I said. “Besides, I didn’t ask to join the Rovenian Legion, only for someone to teach me to fight like a legionary.”

  Kana stroked his beard. “I hardly see why not, though I wonder at your request. May I inquire why you wish to learn the ways of war?”

  I had already devised an answer. “It would give me something to do. I’d rather learn something useful than sit around doing nothing.”

  Kana laughed. “Terra must indeed be fortunate if its people are all as ambitious as you, Lance Eliot. Your request is granted. Corporal Tarkka, inform Aidan I have a pupil for him.”