After a minute of hugging, kissing and sobbing, she pulled herself away and went to Sam. He cursed himself because there, was no one else he could reasonably blame. If he had shown that he wanted her when she had made it plain that he could have her, then she might not have turned to von Richthofen. Why hadn’t he taken her, then? Why had he clung to the idea that Livy would eventually come back and that, if he took another woman now, Livy would resent it so much she would never have anything to do with him?
His thinking wasn’t logical. But whatever the philosophers claimed, the main use of logic was to justify your emotions.
Gwenafra had kissed him while her tears ran down his bare chest. Now she left his arms and went back to Lothar, and Sam Clemens was left with the problem of what to do with—or to—John Lackland.
He strode through the gates with Joe Miller lumbering behind him. A moment later, von Richthofen had caught up with him. He was swearing and muttering in German, “I’ll kill him!”
Sam stopped. “You get out of here! I’m mad enough, but I can control myself! You’re in the lion’s den now, and if you try anything, he can have you killed and claim self-defense. He’d love that. In fact, he may have done all this just to set up our murder.” Lothar said, “But you’re here with only Joe!” “I wouldn’t ever call Joe an only! Anyway, if you hadn’t been so busy mugging with Gwen, you would have heard me order the troops to storm the palace and kill everybody in it if I’m not out in fifteen minutes.”
Lothar stared at Sam. “You’ve certainly gotten much more aggressive!”
“The more trouble I have and the longer the building of the Riverboat takes, the meaner I get,” Sam said. There was no point in telling him that his anger at him and Gwenafra was turned onto John, who already had so much directed at him that he should have curled up and crisped away. And would have if there were any justice in the world.
He entered the largest building inside the stockade of tall lodgepole-pine logs and he brushed past Sharkey. The slope-shouldered thug started to block his way, but Sam did not break his stride. A cavernous growl came from the vast hairy figure behind Sam. Sharkey snarled soundlessly and made the mistake of not moving to one side far enough. A huge reddish-haired hip sent the two-hundredand-thirty-pound man staggering back as if he were a hollow dummy. “I’ll kill you one of these days!” Sharkey said in English.
Joe turned his head slowly as if it were a turret on a battleship and the tremendous proboscis were a cannon. “Yeth? You and vhat army?”
“You’re getting pretty snappy with the comeback, Joe,” Sam muttered. “My influence, no doubt.” “I’m not ath dumb ath motht people think,” Joe said. “That wouldn’t be possible.”
His rage had become a dull red now. Even with Joe as his bodyguard, he was far from being safe. But he was banking that John would go only so far with him, because he wanted that boat, too.
John was sitting at the big round oaken table with a dozen of his thugs. The giant Zaksksromb was standing behind him. All held clay steins. The room reeked of tobacco and liquor. John’s eyes were red, but then they usually were. Light came in through the windows but the direct sunlight was blocked off by the stockade poles. Some pine torches burned smokily. Sam stopped, took a cigar out of the little box in the bag hanging from his belt and lit it. It angered him that his hand shook so much, and that increased his anger at John. He said, “All right, Your Majesty! It was bad enough that you took those alien women for your own vile purposes! But to take Gwenafra? She’s a citizen of this state! You really put your neck in the noose, John, and I’m not just using figurative language!”
John downed the whiskey in the stein and gently put it down on the table. Softly, he said, “I had those women removed for their own safety. The crowd was very ugly; they wanted to kill the missionaries. And Gwenafra was taken along through a mistake. I will ascertain who is responsible for that and punish him.”