So without any means of defense I stepped forward and took my place between the guards, Lalfarns following a few short paces behind. While a stunner was no blaster, I had worn one for most of my life, hardly knowing that it hung at my belt. Now I had an odd naked feeling and a sudden wariness of all around me. I tried to believe that this was merely reaction to my disarming, to the fact that I was, for the moment at least, at the mercy of alien law on a world strange to me. Only my uneasiness grew, until I knew it for one of the forewarnings that come with even the slightest gift of esper most of us in the space-borne communities have. I glanced back at Lalfarns Just in time to see that he, too, was looking over his shoulder, his hand going to the grip of his stunner and then falling away again, as he realized that gesture might be misinterpreted.
It was then that I took better notice of the way in which my guards were going. By right we should have been heading for the Great Booth wherein the court sat during the ten days of the fair. I could see the wide-eaved roof above the tents and booths ahead, but well to the left. We were edging toward the fringe of the fair, to the space which held the ornamented tents of the nobles who could not be housed in Yrjar.
“Follower of All Light.” I raised my voice to catch the ear of the white-and-black-clad priest, who had quickened step so we must lengthen stride to keep the proper distance in his wake. “Where do we go? The court lies—”
He did not turn his head, or give any evidence that he heard me. And I saw now that we were turning from the last line of merchant booths in among the tents of the lords. There were no crowds here, only a servant or two in sight.
“Hallie, Hallie, Hal!”
They came out of hiding, that swirl of men, stampeding into our small party with their mounts trained to rear and smash at footmen with their heavy hoofs. I heard Lalfarns shout angrily. Then the guard to my right gave me a shove which sent me skidding, trying to keep my balance, between two tents.
There was a sharp pain in my head and that was an end to it for a time.
Pain sent me into darkness, and the throb of pain brought me out of it, or accompanied me on a reluctant journey into consciousness once again. For some moments I could not understand the sensations that racked my body. Finally I came to guess, and then to know for a certainty that I lay face-down across the back of a burden kas, bound there, and jolted painfully by every heavy-footed step the beast took. Around me I heard a jangle, the murmur of men, so that I knew I was carried in the company of more than one rider. But their speech was not of Yrjar and the few words I caught I could not understand.
I do not know how long the nightmare continued, for I slipped in and out of consciousness more times than my painful head noted. And after a while I prayed that I would not return from the welcoming dark the next time it engulfed me.
A body made tough by a whole life of space voyaging. a body inured to all the stress and strain and dangers. does not easily yield to ill treatment, as I was painfully to discover in days to come. I was forcibly dismounted from the kas by the easy method of cutting my bonds and allowing me to fall to a very hard pavement.
About was the flicker of torch and lamplight, but my vision was so fogged I distinguished mv captors only as vague figures moving about. Then I was lifted by mv shoulders, dragged along, and with a last push sent tumbling down a steep incline into a wanly lighted place.
More of the speech I could not understand and a figure clumped down after me. There was the full force of some liquid dashed into my face and I lay gasping. Water was good on my parched lips, though, and I put forth a feverish tongue to lick off the small moisture. A grip in my hair, which tore at the roots, jerked my head up, and more water was poured into my mouth, half strangling me until I made some shift to swallow.
It was not enough, but it was some small alleviation. The hand in my hair released me before I had more than a swallow or two, and my head thumped back on the floor, with enough to send me off again.
When I blinked out of that swoon or sleep, or both, there was a darkness which was frightening. I blinked and blinked, trying to clear my vision—until I realized that not my sight, but the area in which I lay was at fault. With infinite effort I managed at last to brace myself up on one elbow so that I could better see the place of my confinement.
There was no furnishing save a bench, and that rude work. The floor was littered with ill-smelling straw. In fact there was an evil odor about the place which grew stronger the longer I sniffed it. A window slit, tall as my body, made a vertical cut in one wall. It was no wider than a couple of hand spans, but through it came a grayish light which did not master the comer shadows. On the bench, as my bleary eyes focused there, I saw an earthen jug, and suddenly that became the sole interest in my world.
It was impossible to get to my feet. Even sitting up left me so giddy that I had to close my eyes and remain so for a space. In the end I reached that promise of water by a worm’s progress, mostly on my belly, across the cold pavement of the floor.
There was liquid in the jug, my hope and fear concerning which had warred all during my crawl. It was not water alone, for it had a sharp, sour taste which drew mouth tissues. But I drank, for I would have lapped up far worse and thought it wine at the moment.
Though I tried to limit myself sanely once the water was on my tongue, easing the dry torment of my mouth and throat, it took all my will power to put the jug aside while liquid still sloshed in it.
My head was clearing and, after a short time, I was able to move without bringing on a giddy attack. Perhaps the odd taste in the water had been that of a drug or stimulant. Finally I lurched along the wall to the slit of window, to see what lay without.
There was sun there, though its rays reached me only as a kind of twilight. And my field of vision was exceedingly narrow. Some distance away was a gray reach of solid wall that resembled any fortress of Yiktor. There was nothing else, save pavement which must run from the base of the building in which I was imprisoned to that wall.
Then a man passed across my slip of outer world. He did not linger, but I glimpsed enough to know that he was a sword-sworn of some lord, for he went in mail and helm and had a surcoat of yellow bearing a black device. I could not see the manner of that device, nor would I have been able to read it, the intricate heraldry of Yiktor not being one of the matters of Trader concern.
Yet—yellow and black—I had seen that combination of colors before. I leaned against the wall and tried to remember where and when. Color . . . the last time I had thought about color—silver and ruby-Maelen’s costume—the pink-gray of her banner which had exerted such an odd influence—the banners of the other amusement places— Amusement places—the searing red and green of the gambling tent that had done more than beckon—it had screamed!
The gambling tent! Half memory sharpened into a mental picture . . . Gauk Slafid at the table, the piles of counters heaped into small towers of luck, and to his left the young noble who had watched me so intently as I passed with Maelen. He had worn a surcoat, too, glistening half silk of a forceful yellow—and the breast of it had borne a house badge outlined and stitched in black. But the bits and pieces I now held could not be fitted into any recognizable pattern.
Any quarrel with a native of Yiktor was with Othelm, not with the young man in black and yellow. I could not see a logical alliance between two such widely separated people. The beast seller would have no call upon a lord’s protection. My knowledge of Yiktorian customs was as complete as Trader tapes could make it, but no one could absorb the fine nuances of social life and custom on an alien world without years of intensive study. It might well be that the brush with Othelm had led to my present predicament.