John assured La Viro that he was not going to venture out onto the lake for a battle.
La Viro pleaded with him to negotiate for an honorable peace with La Viro as intermediary.
John refused during the first two meetings with La Viro. Then, on the third, he surprised La Viro and Goring by agreeing.
“But I think it will be a waste of time and effort,” John said. “Clemens is a monomaniac. I’m sure he thinks of only two things. Getting his boat back and killing me.”
La Viro was happy that John was at least willing to make the effort. Hermann was not so happy. What John said and what John did were often not the same.
Despite La Viro’s urgings, John refused to permit missionaries to talk to his crew about the Church. He had set up armed guards at the end of the cliff-path to insure that the missionaries didn’t come over it. His excuse, of course, was that he didn’t want to be attacked by Clemens’ marines. La Viro told John that he had no right to prevent nonhostiles from crossing over. John replied that he had signed no agreement with anyone concerning passage on the path. He held it, and that made him the determiner of the rights.
Three months passed. Hermann waited for his chance to get Burton and Frigate to one side when they came to Aglejo. Their visits were very infrequent and when they did come in he could never get them alone.
One morning, Hermann was summoned to the Temple. La Viro gave him the news, which had just come via the relay drums. The Not For Hire would be at Aglejo in two weeks. Goring was to meet it at the same place he’d boarded the Rex.
Even though Clemens had not been friendly when Hermann had known him in Parolando, he hadn’t been murderous. When Goring went up to the pilothouse, he was surprised to feel happy at seeing Clemens and the gigantic titanthrop, Joe Miller. Moreover, the American recognized him within four seconds of their introduction. Miller claimed to have known him within a second by his odor.
“Although,” Miller said, “you don’t thmell ekthactly as you uthed to. You thmell better than then.”
“Perhaps it’s the odor of sanctity,” Hermann said and laughed.
Clemens grinned, and said. “Virtue and vice have their own chemistries? Well, why not? How do I smell after these forty years of travel, Joe?”
“Thomething like old panther pithth,” Joe said.
It wasn’t quite like old friends meeting after a long absence. But Goring felt that, for some reason, they were as pleased to see him as he was them. Perhaps/it was a perverted kind of nostalgia. Or guilt may have played some part in it. They may have felt responsible for what had happened to him at Parolando. They shouldn’t, of course, since Clemens had done his best to make him leave the state before something violent happened to him.
They told him in brief outline what had occurred since they’d last seen him. And he described his experiences since then.
They went down to the grand salon to get a drink and to introduce him to various notables. Cyrano de Bergerac was called down from the flight deck, where he’d been fencing.
The Frenchman remembered him, though not well. Clemens described again what Hermann had been doing, and then de Bergerac recalled the lecture Goring had given.
Time had certainly worked some changes with Clemens and de Bergerac, Hermann thought. The American seemed to have shed his great dislike for the Frenchman, to have forgiven him because he had taken Olivia Clemens as his mate. The two now were on easy terms, chatting, joking, laughing.
There came a time when the good time had to end. Hermann said, “I suppose you’ve heard that King John’s boat came to Aglejo three months ago? And that it’s waiting for you just beyond the strait at the western end of the lake?”
Clemens swore and said, “We’ve known that we were closing the gap between us fast. But no, we didn’t know that he’d stopped running!”
Hermann described what had happened since he’d boarded the Rex.