and blackening the names of all traders with Lyra? Trader, do not hope to put down the credits that your weapons cost you as a legitimate expense of the voyage. I will not allow it when I audit your books. It was a piece of folly on which you spent personal funds, as far as the College and Order of Heralds is concerned.”
“Look here,” protested blackboard. “You’re supposed to be spreading utilitarian civilization, aren’t you? What’s utilitarian about leaving one of my crewmen here?”
Alen ignored the childish argument and wrapped himself in angry silence. As to civilization, he wondered darkly whether such a trading voyage and his part in it was relevant at all. Were the slanders true? Was the College and Order simply a collection of dupes headed by cynical oldsters greedy for luxury and power?
Such thoughts hadn’t crossed his mind in a long time. He’d been too busy to entertain them, cramming his head with languages, folk-ways, mores, customs, underlying patterns of culture, of hundreds of galactic peoples—and for what? So that this fellow could make a profit and the College and Order take a quarter of that profit. If civilization was to come to Lyra, it would have to come in the form of metal. If the Lyrans didn’t want metal, make them take it.
What did Machiavelli say? “The chief foundations of all states are good laws and good arms; and as there cannot be good laws where the state is not well-armed, it follows that where they are well-armed, they have good laws.” It was odd that the teachers had slurred over such a seminal idea, emphasizing instead the spiritual integrity of the weaponless College and Order—or was it?
The disenchantment he felt creeping over him was terrifying.
“The castle,” said the watchman over his shoulder, and their wagon stopped with a rattle before a large but unimpressive brick structure of five stories.
“You wait,” the trader told the driver after they got out. He handed him two of his fifty-credit bills. “You wait, you get many, many more money. You understand, wait?”
“I wait plenty much,” shouted the driver delightedly. “I wait all night, all day. You wonderful master. You great, great master, I wait—”
“All right,” growled the trader, shutting him off. “You wait.”
The watchman took them through an entrance hall lit by hissing pressure lamps and casually guarded by a few liveried men with truncheons. He threw open the door of a medium-sized, well-lit room with a score of people in it, looked in, and uttered a despairing groan.
A personage on a chair that looked like a throne said sharply, “Are those the star-travelers? Well, don’t just stand there. Bring them in!”
“Yes, your honor, Judge Krarl,” said the watchman unhappily.
“Ifs the wrong judge!'”Alen hissed at the trader. “This one gives out jail sentences!”
“Do what you can,” said blackboard grimly.
The watchman guided them to the personage in the chair and indicated a couple of low stools, bowed to the chair and retired to stand at the back of the room.
“Your honor,” sa*id Alen, “I am Journeyman-Herald Alen, Herald for the trading voyage—”
“Speak when you’re spoken to,” said the judge sharply. “Sir, with the usual insolence of wealth you have chosen to keep us waiting. I do not take this personally; it might have happened to Judge Treel, who—to your evident dismay—I am replacing because of a sudden illness, or to any other member of the bench. But as an insult to our justice, we cannot overlook it. Sir, consider yourself reprimanded. Take your seats. Watchman, bring in the Cephean.”
“Sit down,” Alen murmured to the trader. “This is going to be bad.”
A watchman brought in Chief Elwon, bleary-eyed, tousled and sporting a few bruises. He gave Alen and the trader a shamefaced grin as his guard sat him on a stool beside them. The trader glared back.
Judge Krarl mumbled perfunctorily: “Letbattlebejoined among the several parties in this dispute let no manquestionourim-partial awarding of the victory speak now if you yield instead to our judgment. Well? Speak up, you watchmen!”
The watchman who had brought the Herald and the trader started and said from the back of the room: “lyieldinsteadto yourhonorsjudgment.”