“I will never guide you!” said Branithar to that. “And alone, unable to read our navigational books, you would never find the way. We will be farther from your world than light can travel in a thousand of your years.”
“You might have the courtesy not to insult our intelligence,” I huffed. “I know as well as you do that light has an infinite velocity.”
He shrugged.
A gleam lit Sir Roger’s eye. “When will we arrive?” he asked.
“In ten days,” Branithar informed us. It is not the distances between stars, great though they are, that has made us so slow to reach your world. We have been expanding for three centuries. It is the sheer number of suns.”
“Hmm. When we arrive, we have this fine ship to use, with its bombards and the hand weapons. The Wersgorix may regret our visit!”
I translated for Branithar, who answered, “I sincerely advise you to surrender at once. True, these fire-beams of ours can slay a man, or reduce a city to slag. But you will find them useless, because we have screens of pure force which will stop any such beam. The ship is not so protected, since the generators of a force shield are too bulky for it. Thus the guns of the fortress can shoot upward and destroy you.”
When Sir Roger heard this, he said only: “Well, we’ve ten days to think it over. Let this remain a secret. No one can see out of the ship, save from this place. I’ll think of some tale that won’t alarm the folk too much.”
He went out, his cloak swirling behind him like great wings.
Chapter IV
I was the least of our troop, and much happened in which I had no part. Yet I shall set it down as fully as may be, using conjecture to fill in the gaps of knowledge. The chaplains heard much in confession, and without violating confidence they were ever quick to correct false impressions.
I believe, therefore, that Sir Roger took Catherine his lady aside and told her how matters stood. He had hoped for calm and courage from her, but she flew into the bitterest of rages.
“Ill was the day I wed you!” she cried. Her lovely face turned red and then white, and she stamped a small foot on the steel deck. “Bad enough that your oafishness should disgrace me before king and court, and doom me to yawn my life away in that bear’s den you call a castle. Now you set the lives and the very souls of my children at hazard!”
“But, dearest,” he stammered. “I could not know-“
“No, you were too stupid! ‘Twas not enough to go robbing and whoring off into France, you must needs do it in this aerial coffin. Your arrogance told you the demon was so afraid of you he would be your obedient slave. Mary, pity women!”
She whirled, sobbing, and hurried from him.
Sir Roger stared after her till she had vanished down the long corridor. Then, heavyhearted, he betook himself to see his troopers.
He found them in the afterhold, cooking their supper. The air remained sweet in spite of all the fires we lit; Branithar told me the ship embodied a system for renewing the vital spirits of the atmosphere. I found it somewhat unnerving always to have the walls luminous and not know day from night. But the common soldiers sat around, hoisting ale crocks, bragging, dicing, cracking fleas, a wild, godless crew who nonetheless cheered their lord with real affection.
Sir Roger signaled to Red John Hameward, whose huge form lumbered to join him in a small side chamber. “Well, sire,” he remarked, “it seems a longish ways to France after all.”
‘Plans have been, urn, changed,” Sir Roger told him carefully. “It seems there may be a rare booty in the homeland of this ship. With that, we could equip an army large enough not only to take, but to hold and settle all our conquests.”
Red John belched and scratched under his doublet. “If we don’t run into more nor we can handle, sire.”
“I think not. But you must prepare your men for this change of plan and soothe whatever fears they have.”