There was a small troop of six then, riding in military formation, wearing metal helmets and carrying bared swords in formal salute. Behind them came two riders, followed by a longer train of armed men. One of the riders was a woman, her long skirt flapping on either side of her mount as if it were slit. The skirt was of a deep forest-green, and her tight jacket was of the same shade, though it bore braiding of silver in spirals across the breast. From this height Roane could not see her face, for she had the collar of a cloak turned up about her throat, though the rest of its folds had been pushed well back on her shoulders. And on her head was a broad-brimmed hat ornamented with a cockade of long yellow feathers. Her companion was in the same green from the boots on his feet to the narrow-brimmed, high-crowned hat on his head. Roane could see little of his face either, though-by his dress he must be of the high nobility.
The villagers had turned out to greet the company. Men waved their caps, women curtsied. And the woman rider raised one hand in salute. All the mounts were Astrian duocorns and thus the fact was brought home to Roane that this was indeed a settlers’ culture, established at the whim of a mind half the galaxy away, with the resources of many planets to call upon. These beasts were smaller and lighter than those Roane had seen before. But there was no mistaking their curved sets of horns as they tossed their heads, even danced a little.
Roane watched the party enter the courtyard of the keep, the woman and the green-clad man dismounting before the main door. He bowed from the waist and offered her his wrist, she touching her fingers to it formally. It was like watching a living story tape and Roane was enthralled. The brilliant colors, the people did not seem real, rather story-inspired, and she could not believe in them. It was one thing to have such reported on snooper tape, another to see it in action. She slipped away from her post reasonably sure of one thing, that it was the Princess Ludorica who had just arrived.
Who the man might be, Roane could not guess; any member of the Revenian nobility from Duke Reddick down. She held to caution in her retreat, knowing she must take the roundabout way back. And the time so spent brought the storm upon her.
Suddenly it was night-dark, so that if she had not had her night lenses she would have been lost. Wind caught the crowns of the trees with a fury which frightened her. Roane had been on many worlds; she had known storms of wind, of drenching rain, of whirling sand, wind-driven grit to scrape the skin raw. But then she had been in such cover as their camps afforded, sheltered from the full force of such gales.
Now, caught in the open, her nerve almost broke. She must find shelter. And for that there was only the ruined tower. With what strength she had left she headed for it.
Rain added to the hammer blows of the wind. Branches splintered and fell. Roane cowered away from one jagged club. The whip of lightning lashed across the dark, to be followed by a crack of deafening thunder. And the tree to which she now clung, thick and sturdy as it seemed, swayed under the pull of the gale.
She could not stay there, but dared she try to go on? There was another bolt of lightning, which found a target not too far away. Roane screamed, her voice swallowed by the thunder, and tried to run, beating at the bushes to force a path. Then she saw ahead the mouthlike doorway of the tower.
Once she gained that, she held tight, panting and gasping. Her clothing, meant to be waterproof, had kept her body dry. But her hair was plastered to her head; water dribbled across her face and into her half-open mouth. For a moment or two out there she had felt as if the force of the storm had torn away her breath.
Now she recovered enough to move on in, and then dared to use the beamer, set on its lowest power, to inspect what lay about her.
To her surprise there was furniture here. But as she went closer she could see that its presence was probably due only to the fact that it could not have been moved except by the greatest of effort. There was a table hewn from a single thick slab of dark-red stone which was veined with thin lines of gold that glittered even in the weak light when she smeared away a deposit of dust. Inset in the top of this was a series of squares, alternating red and white, perhaps to form a playing board for some game.
Facing each other across this slab, which was mounted on round balls of legs, were two chairs lacking legs at all, the seats being square boxes with the high backs and wide arms. Both arms and backs were carved, the gray dust filling the hollows of the patterns until they could hardly be distinguished. Against one wall was a massive chest, also carved. And beyond it was a stair set against the wall, the outer edge unguarded by any rail, fashioned of the same stone as the walls, not quite as ted as that of the table, but a dull rust shade.
There were, in addition, two tall standards of rust-encrusted metal, the tops of which were level with Roane’s shoulder. Each of these held a lamp, a bowl with a support for a wick.
A drift of leaves and soil spread inward from the doorless entrance. Roane went to the stair and began to climb, pointing the beamer to where the steps disappeared into a dark opening above.
It was when she came out on the second level that she discovered that the tower, which had appeared three stories high from without, was really only two. If there had ever been a third floor above, it either had been wood and rotted away or had been removed. She flashed the beamer up there to see only stone and mighty beams.
This second room had furnishings also: two more of the lamp standards, plus a chest, and on a step dais a wide bed frame of the same wood which formed the massive chairs below. It was in the form of an oblong box, full of an evil-smelling layer of what might have been rotted fabric, perhaps the remains of bed linen left to molder away.
There were windows, narrow slits, without any protection against the wind and rain which now drove spears of damp across the floor. Another bolt of lightning made the whole room brilliant. And then followed such a burst of thunder that Roane dropped the beamer and cowered against the chest, her eyes squeezed shut, hands over her ears.
It seemed to her the thunder filled the tower, which shook from the blast. Even when it had gone she was too weak with sheer terror to move. She had never known such natural fury before and it made her a prisoner.
How long that panic lasted—it could well have been more than one hour, even two—she never knew, but finally she began to think again. Uncle Offlas—Sandar—they were in the woods. Could the camp stand up to such a storm as this? What if the lightning hit—or a tree crashed down?
She fumbled with her wrist com, tried to tap a code call. But she listened in vain for any reply. The storm must be cutting off reception. If there was any longer a receiver—
Although the wind still moaned around the tower and now and then she heard a crash as if some branch or even tree fell, the very worst of the storm seemed spent. Roane brushed off the top of the chest, testing it gingerly lest it splinter under her weight, and then sat there, bringing out an E-ration tube and making a meal from its contents.
So heartened, she used the beamer once more and made a careful examination of the room. That the tower had ever been a dwelling place she doubted, in spite of the bed. Perhaps it had been intended for just the use she was now putting it to, a shelter for storm-stayed hunters.
The evil smell of the bed, which was growing stronger in the dank air, had kept her away from that portion of the room. But finally she ventured to approach it. The bed itself was like a box without a lid, the cavity holding the rotten stuffs. At the four corners stood carven posts, matched as well as tools could sculpture to the bark of trees, vines twined about in high relief, now much masked by thick spider webs which held dust and mummified insects to form a nasty draping.