“What’s that?” Sylvia was interested.
“It’s his way of being clever,” I told her. “The next bit in the act is to sing ‘George Washington Bridge’ for you. If you ignore him, he’ll go away.”
“That’s right,” Tom assured her, “I leave in a huff. A large, cream-colored huff.”
“Oh.”
“What do I think about what?” I reinquired.
“What’s going to happen to us at the other end of this carriage ride.”
“We’re going to be questioned, fed, clothed and sheltered.”
“Like POW’s. What do we tell them, name, rank and serial number?”
I thought about it. “I guess not. I think we should tell Lord Gart the whole story. Since he has such an elaborate setup to receive visitors, he obviously has some idea of what’s happening. Maybe we can sort of trade information; it might help us.”
“I lean toward agreeing with you,” Tom said. “But I have a suspicious mind. We’d better stay on the alert.”
“I thought,” Sylvia interjected, “that we’d agreed to that last night.”
“We always repeat ourselves,” I told her. “It’s our trademark.”
The coach made one more pit stop before the end of the trip. It was early afternoon when we drove into the courtyard of a big manor house. The coachman swung down from his perch and opened the door for us. “Milady, gentlemen, we’ve arrived. Please step down.”
As we descended from the coach, a young, uniformed man hurried down the steps to greet us. “Are these the latest?” he asked the coachman, who tipped his hat respectfully.
“They are, sir.”
“You made good time. Greetings. We received word on the teleson to expect you. Please follow me.”
He turned and led us up the steps, through the massive oak doors, through a large reception hall and into a room. During the walk I tried to place the costume. The closest I could come was British Navy at about the time of the Napoleonic Wars. “Please take seats,” he said. “Someone will come for you in a few minutes.”
Giving us a cross between a nod and a salute, he left.
The room we were in was bare except for the Persian rug centered on the floor and a lot of straight-back chairs with embroidered seats scattered around, backs to the wall. The floor sticking out around the edges of the rug was highly polished wood. The walls were papered in a patterned, high textured red, and decorated with Famous Ancestor paintings. We sat in three chairs close to the door to do our waiting.
I put my arm around Sylvia, who was looking glum. “Cheer up,” I said. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
“Do you swear it?” she asked earnestly.
“I do,” I told her. “Just stick with me, kid.”
Tom took out his pipe and tamped tobacco down into its maw. He lit it with that serious, cross-eyed expression common to all true pipe-smokers. “Tell me,” he said. “Any new thoughts about our condition?”
“Well,” I said. “We’re in the hands of the military. That could be either good or bad, we’ll have to wait and see. And I wonder what a teleson is.”
“I agree,” Tom said.
Sylvia asked, “Why do you think so?”
“We’ve been treated with military efficiency throughout,” I told her. “I’ll bet even the drivers were plainclothes EM. Besides, its the old military pattern: hurry up and wait.”
“EM?” Sylvia asked.
“Enlisted men. In this case probably NCO’s, or noncommissioned officers to you.”
An old man, who by his costume was either a high functionary or a butler, hobbled in. “Good afternoon,” he said. “Please come with me.” We came: around a corner, up a wide flight of stairs, around another corner, down a long hallway and into a room.
There, behind a compact desk, sat a heavily gold-braided naval officer. He stood as we entered the room. “Please take seats.” We did, and he sat. “Good afternoon. Welcome to the Angevin Empire. I am Captain LeClerk, chief of naval intelligence for New England. I am in charge of what we are calling Project Visitor, directly under Lord Gart. You’ll be staying here, under my charge, until we’re done with you: probably no more than a couple of days. Then you’re free to go, with the one restriction that we’d appreciate it if you didn’t discuss your travels through time, or whatever it turns out to be, with our natives. They’re a superstitious bunch, and your story is quite liable to make them think you’re agents of the Devil. We’ve checked, if you’re interested, and as far as we can determine there is no diabolic influence involved.
“We will, of course, try to maintain a paternal influence when you leave: see to suitable housing, employment and the like. We’re even now setting up an indoctrination course to acquaint those of you whose lives were especially dissimilar to ours with our customs, habits and laws. First let me take down your names, then I’ll try to answer any questions you might have.” He picked up a quill pen and looked inquiringly at us.
“Michael Kurland,” I told him.
“Kurland,” he repeated. “Polish?”
“No, American.”
“I just wondered. We’re having a little dispute with the Polish Empire right now. It wouldn’t have affected you in any case. I would have just had to warn you not to speak Polish around here; you’d keep getting turned in for a spy.”
“Thomas Waters,” Tom said.
The officer wrote it. “Waters. Waters? Well, well, isn’t that interesting.” Tom looked puzzled.
“Lady Sylvia DuChamp,” Sylvia said.
“Well,” he said, writing it down. “Welcome, Lady DuChamp. You’re our first noble visitor.”
“Just Lady Sylvia,” she told him. “You do know the distinction?”
“Of course. Welcome, Lady Sylvia. Now, any questions?”
“You seem to think we’re going to settle here,” I said. “What makes you think we’ll be here that long?”
“You’ll be free to go anywhere you like,” he said. “I just assumed you’d want to stay here at least until you got to know our world.”
“That,” I told him, “isn’t what I meant. We’ve already passed through several worlds. Involuntarily, I assure you. If the pattern holds true, we won’t be here more than a few days.”
Captain LeClerk looked startled. “Several worlds? More than one? By the Good Lord, that’s something! You’re the first, you know. Through more than one world, the chief will be fascinated. You really are travelers. We must get your histories at once.” He rang a small, brass bell on his desk. “Bocco will show you to your rooms. I’d appreciate it if you’d write down a summary of your travels for us, putting in everything you think relevant. You do know how to write?”
We assured him that we did.
“Splendid. Even you, Lady Sylvia? Splendid. Dinner will be in about three hours. If you could have something ready by then, it would give Lord Gart a chance to go over it. I’m sure he’ll want to see you after dinner. We’ll see what we can do about clothing for you; give you a chance to change into something fresh. I’m afraid it’ll be some uniform or another for the men, and we’ll do the best we can for you, milady. We’ve ordered a stock of clothing to accommodate future visitors; but it’s been arriving in dribs and drabs, mostly, I’m afraid, drabs. Whoever put in the first order must have been thinking of garbing prisoners. But I’ve done what I can to set that aright.”
Bocco, our functionary/butler, appeared at the door.
“Bocco, please show these gentlemen, and Lady Sylvia, to their rooms. They’ll be taking dinner in the Blue Room.” Bocco seemed subtly impressed, either by Lady Sylvia or the Blue Room, or possibly both. Our rooms were one flight up and adjoined: Lady Sylvia in one and Tom and I in the next. We opened the connecting door and gathered in Sylvia’s room to talk.
“Lady Sylvia,” Tom said. “You didn’t tell me.”
“Didn’t tell me, either,” I added.
“Were you putting him on?”
“Putting him....”
“Fooling or tricking him,” I explained.
“Oh, no indeed. I am Lady Sylvia. My father is Lord Farthing.”
“Not Lord DuChamp?” Tom asked.
“That’s not the way it works. Don’t you have titles in your world?”
“In our world, yes. But not on our continent. As a result, I’ve noticed that people in our country seem much more impressed with titles.”
“Well, my father is Henry DuChamp, Lord Farthing. He has loads of additional names strung in there with a few extra titles, but they only come out on state occasions.”
I asked, “What’s the bit about your only being Lady Sylvia? Why not Lady DuChamp or Lady Farthing?”
“My mother is Lady Farthing, as the lord’s wife. If a woman inherits the title, say if my older brother dies, then I’d be Lady Farthing. Whoever I married wouldn’t be Lord Farthing, but only Lord Michael, for example. There’s more like that; every situation you can think of has been covered, and probably happened once or twice.”
“I’m sure,” I said.
“Well,” Tom said, “let’s get to writing. It’s the least we can do for our hosts.”
We retired to our separate writing desks, or secretaries, or whatever you call them.
“Look!” Tom called, waving the top sheet of his pile of stationery in the air. “Genuine foolscap. The stuff Dickens used.”
“How can you tell?” I asked him.
“It looks like foolscap. It feels like foolscap. It says ‘foolscap’ on the watermark, with a picture of one of those pointy dunce caps. I shall create a masterpiece.”
“Call it Oliver Twist,” I suggested, buckling down to work. I started with the quill and inkwell supplied, and succeeded only in thoroughly smudging a sheet of paper. Slow-drying inks are not meant for left-handed people. Either your hand follows what you write, smudging it beyond recognition and messing up your hand, or you hold your hand twisted around above the line you’re writing, and the words look like hen tracks. Sighing a mighty sigh, I crumpled the top sheet and threw it away. Then I remembered a felt-tip I had collapsed in my wallet, and pulled it out.
I went into a creative trance for a few minutes before setting felt to paper, then started writing. The words flowed onto the paper as I remembered people and events. The thing I had to watch, I found as I crossed out words, was the temptation to use similes that wouldn’t be understood here.
Tom stretched and stamped his feet. “I wish I had a Pepsi,” he said, “or even a Moxie. I can’t write without a soda.”
“Ring for the butler,” I suggested. “I wish I had lined paper, or a typewriter.”
“Where would you plug it in?” Tom asked.
“There is such a thing as a non-electric typewriter.”
“Sure, and there used to be wind-up phonographs too; but why settle, especially as long as you’re wishing. Always wish for the best, that’s my motto.”
“I thought your motto was ‘Poltergeists constitute the principal types of psychical manifestations,” I said. “Or, alternatively, that sign you used to have above your typewriter: ‘An appealing character strives against overwhelming odds to achieve a worthwhile goal.”‘
“One adapts one’s motto to fit one’s needs. Besides, I remember the sign above your typewriter: ‘Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy builds girl.’ You’re nothing but a dirty android-lover.”
“You’re just jealous because you can’t afford a girl of your own, with all the latest attachments,” I told him.
“Pah!” he said. “You science-fiction writers are all the same. No imagination.”
Recess over, we went back to writing. The butler arrived with clothes for us, which he distributed to the right places. Tom attempted to describe his beverage needs to him, and he hurried away, promising to try. A short while later, a lesser functionary, in a less glorious costume, arrived with corked bottles of what proved to be a very good sparkling cider.
After completing our literary efforts, which were collected by a junior officer, we washed up at sink stands. These were wooden pieces of furniture with porcelain sink bowls and a stopper and drain, which I discovered led to a pail hidden by wooden double doors. The sinks were filled from a pitcher of water set by the stand. The soap was of very good quality, except that it tended to dissolve a bit too readily and smelled of exotic oils.
The clothing we received were navy dress uniforms; or, I suppose, in this world of elaborate costumes only semi-dress uniforms, complete to gold-trimmed epaulettes. “I wonder what rank I am,” I said, admiring myself as I put on the heavy jacket.
“Probably ‘Distinguished Visitor, Second Class,’” Tom guessed. “Most navies have a uniform provision for that sort of thing.”
“I suppose you’re right,” I said.
“Sorry to spoil your daydreams. No leading ships of the line into battle against the Spanish—or, I guess here, Polish—Armada. No standing firm on the quarterdeck, issuing orders in an iron voice while cannonballs pierce the air around you and the deck under you. No getting yourself heroically killed to earn a few lines in the Naval Gazette: ‘Commodore Theodore Bear distinguished himself in an action on the Seventeenth on the Cape of Good Hope. He was killed immediately before the engagement terminated, but had succeeded in capturing two enemy vessels, one of which sank from internal damage before it could reach port. Commodore Bear’s final command was executed in a manner that exemplifies the best traditions of the Angevin Navy, and he is to be posthumously knighted and to receive the Order of the Angevin Empire. In ceremonies to take place on the Fifth, Mrs. Bear will receive the O.A.E. for her late husband.”‘
“It would have looked good,” I said.
“What would have looked good?”
“The O.A.E. I wonder if you pin it to your chest or wear it around your neck. It’s a shame I had to die before I got it.”
“Shut up,” Tom said. “You’ll make me cry.”
Someone in the place must have been Sylvia’s size, because the dinner gown they found for her fit like it had been painted on. It was red, low cut and floor length; and that’s all I can tell you about it, being a man and not knowing the terms. Her hair was combed back into long, flowing waves down to her shoulders, and she looked beautiful. That, being a man, I can affirm. A thin strand of pearls complimented the dress and her skin. She glowed.
“You,” I told her as she came through the connecting door, “look beautiful.”
“I feel beautiful,” she said. “They really know the proper way to treat a woman here. I’ve had a wonderfully scented bath, which I must have stayed in for half an hour, and a maid came in to help me dress and make-up.”
“You’re using make-up?” I asked, inspecting her.
“It’s not supposed to show, only to highlight,” she told me. “The maid showed me how they do it here.”
“Will I ruin anything if I kiss you?” I asked.
“I sincerely hope not,” she said. “Let’s see.” Carefully, so as not to crease her dress, we embraced.
“Okay, lovebirds,” Tom called after a while, “break it up, we have to go down to dinner.”
The blue room was magnificent, richly draped, full of the deep colors of ancient wood, and ornately furnished and decorated. It was lit by both gas and candle, the gas mantles glowing with a pure white brightness. That pleased me, as I don’t like eating in the dark. Dimly lit restaurants always make me think they’re trying to hide the food.
Lord Gart sat in a heavy chair at the head of the large table that dominated the room. He was already seated when the rest of us entered. He rose about three inches from the chair to acknowledge the ladies, then planked down again. We filed around the table and sat down, ladies, of course, first.
Lord Gart was massive, both in height and girth. He made the rest of us look like children sitting down to eat with daddy. His arms were large, his chest was large, his belly held the weight of many meals; resting on top of a thick, short neck, was a head that almost dwarfed the r
est. Thick brown hair curled about the top of it, and a dark, heavy, square-cut beard, tinged with grey, framed the square face. His close-set eyes, under bushy brows, radiated intelligence and interest in all that went on around him, while the rest of his face, from thick lips to large, close-set ears, was constantly animated by the emotions that passed under the creased brow.
To his right sat a tall, gaunt, ascetic-looking man, whose thin white hair was neatly plastered down in all directions over his high-domed head. He had large, grey, inquiring eyes that seemed to possess the quality of being able to look inside whatever his gaze rested on. They were set well apart, and separated by the prominent, angular nose of a friendly eagle. His plain grey-white robes provided mass contrast to the linear and pointal splendor of Lord Gart’s crimson, blue, gold, and snow-white raiment. This was Sir Thomas Leseaux, Fellow of the Imperial College of Thaumaturgy, Master of the Guild of Sorcerers, and chief advisor and close friend of Lord Gart. He was, so Captain LeClerk whispered to us, his vowels rounded by awe, the leading theoretical thaumaturgist in the empire.
To his right sat the Demoiselle Tia, a short, dark-haired beauty who was engaged to Sir Thomas and was, so rumor had it, one of the best natural witches in the business. I merely quote what I was told.
We sat across and further down the table, flanked and fronted by naval officers and their women, with an occasional guardsman or civilian thrown in for leaven. If it sounds like the table was large, it doesn’t exaggerate. I might add that the chairs were roomy, and by no means crowded together. After removing the crustation of silver and linen, the table could have been used as two lanes in a bowling alley.
Using the noise of the soup course to hide my words, I leaned toward Sylvia. Pitching my voice so that it would just reach Tom, on her other side, I asked, “What do you think about all this sorcery and witchcraft business? Isn’t that carrying the middle ages motif a little far?”
“Let’s wait before we make any judgments,” Tom said. “All we’ve heard so far are the words, we don’t know what they mean to these people yet. You’ve got to expect a few linguistic differences.”
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