“Aw, damn ye, don’ say it,” snarled Broadax through her cigar. “I wus jist gettin’ ta like ye a little.”
“Face it, you’re a character in an entirely different kind of story. One word: Pratchett!”
“Nooo!”
“Leave her alone, Daniel,” said Melville absently. “And see if we can get someone to tend to young Hayl here.”
Hayl stumbled along beside them, bewildered and confused, still holding a sausage in one hand, and clutching at his slimy trousers with the other.
As they stood at the gangplank, Melville knelt in front of little Hayl and looked him in the eye, “You did well, boy. I’m proud of you, you kept alert, you didn’t panic. The things that happened to you, and the way you responded are normal. We’ve all been there.”
“Welcome ta the service of Her Royal Majesty, the Queen of Westerness,” said Broadax kindly, turning her back on Fielder and pointedly ignoring him. “How’s it feel ta be a sailor, lad?”
“Kinda crappy, ma’am,” sniffed little Hayl, tears running down his face.
“You get used to it,” said Fielder, always pleased to find someone more miserable and frightened than himself. . . .
Chapter the 17th
True Thomas
True Thomas lay on Huntlie bank;
A ferlie he spied wi’ his e’e;
And there he saw a ladye bright
Come riding down by the Eildon Tree.
Anon.
Lieutenant Thomas Melville waited in the Royal Glen. It was a kind of park beneath the trees where the royalty had their flets. He was seated on a patch of moss, with his back against the broad brown bole of an immense tree. There were no medium sized trees here, nor small trees. Just ancient forest giants arching far overhead, and moss and ferns below.
It was hard to relax after the activities of the previous day. He’d come with Ulrich and a few marines, all of them armed, in case Aunt Madelia decided to come back for a second helping. The invitation that Princess Glaive sent him got him into the park, but Ulrich and his guards had to wait outside with the Royal Sylvan Guards. So he was alone, if you didn’t count his monkey and his .45, both of which felt comforting.
He contemplated the worth of his many victories. Analyzing the cost. The scars. The deaths. The loss of innocence.
What a price he had paid. Mostly lonely, seldom alone. Always alert, ever vigilant. Because if he wasn’t vigilant, if he wasn’t ready, then his Ship, his men, all that he loved, could die in an instant.
He had traveled far since that landing on Broadax’s World. So very far. War changes people. Sometimes it changes them into dead people. For those who live, war can fill the holes in men’s hearts. Sometimes the pieces were good, sometimes bad. One way or another, some of the gaps in his soul were filled. But he knew the puzzle was yet to be completed. He lacked the final piece. Was she the piece that would fill the void in his soul? He was cynical, suspicious. Above all, he would not be manipulated.
He waited for a princess, but was she his princess? He surveyed his outer perimeter. How had she entered? Smiles and warmth. Not with me you don’t. He had no patience with triviality.
He heard her coming. First a breath, then a whisper. Tinkling. No, chiming. A mellifluous ringing of many, tiny, perfect bells.
Then she came into view, riding down the forest trail. Princess Glaive.
She was riding sidesaddle atop her horse, a great hairy creature bedecked with bells that called to the forest like a chorus of angels. Her strawberry blond hair, strands of copper and gold, flashed in a brief flicker of sunlight. She was garbed in her traditional green, with black velvet trim and a yellow sash.
Her skirt was o’ the grass-green silk,
Her mantle o’ the velvet fyne;
At ilka tett o’ her horse’s mane,
Hung fifty siller bells and nine.
The forest was a verdant cathedral overhead. Lit like emerald stained glass, with speckles of sky blue and vivid rainbow flecks where birds fluttered. Their throats echoed the call of her horse’s bells.
No. Not a horse. As she grew near, close inspection revealed that she was mounted atop a dog. A great, hairy, lap-tongued beast that proceeded to stride up and baptize Melville into the universal church of the happy dog.
“Eemph?” said his monkey as the dog dedicated the full attentions of its vast, pink, sopping salute to the monkey. The little creature would have been lifted from Melville’s back except that it gripped tight to his wool uniform jacket with all eight hands.
Melville stood, shoving aside the dog’s massive head, looking up at the princess.
Eyes aglow, she looked down at him. So diminutive, yet she knew no fear.
Their eyes locked. He raised the alarm. Defenses manned.
She stormed his defenses like the hosts of heaven. As a smitten man is wont to do, it seemed to him that she was sent from above.
He dropped to his knee with a self mocking smile and reached up to take her hand. “My lady, you are surely heaven sent.”
True Thomas he pu’d aff his cap,
And louted low down on his knee:
“Hail to thee, Mary, Queen of Heaven!
For thy peer on earth could never be.”
But was he truly in love? Or was he being beguiled, manipulated?
“Nay, True Thomas. I am but a Sylvan princess, come as my grandfather’s herald.”
There was a thrill of eldritch wonder when he heard her call him “True Thomas.” Wait a minute, he asked himself. How’d she get inside my poem?
“O no, O no, Thomas,” she said,
“That name does not belang to me;
I’m but the Queen o’ fair Elfland,
That am hither come to visit thee.”
His poetry had always provided him with a frame of reference. For some people there was background music or a theme song playing in their minds. For him it was poetry that provided his theme. Now it seemed as though she’d joined him in “his” poem. As if she’d tuned in to his mind and started speaking to him at that level. Was it empathy or was he being manipulated?
It was as though a lonely man played solitaire in an empty room for his entire life, then suddenly someone sat down and played the game against him. Against him? Or with him? A partner, or an opponent? That was the question.
“What word from the king, fair herald?” he asked, standing up shakily, still holding her hand.
“Lift me down from my steed, Thomas, and I shall apprise thee of deeds done and offers made.” Then she slid down to dismount. He reached up and caught her by the hips, setting her down on the ground, light as the frothy swirl of silk that enveloped her.
Her mount turned its head to her and she pushed it away. “Be off with ye, Daisy.”
“Daisy?”
“Aye,” she said, watching fondly as the dog circled twice and lay down, scratching behind one huge, floppy ear, “she is a great hairy beaste, but I do love her. And now,” she continued, looking up into Melville’s face as she stood before him, “Thou must know that the Westerness ambassador encountered an accident on his way home last night. A distinctly Sylvan style of accident. Alas, he died of terminal stupidity. ‘Tis the only universal capital crime. As always, the judgment was immediate, and final. There was no appeal.”
Melville was suddenly gripped with amazement and horror. She looked so beautiful and innocent standing here in the peaceful forest. It was disconcerting to hear this seemingly gentle creature tell him so lightly, so blithely, of the diplomatic dispatch of an ambassador.
” ‘Tis truly fortunate that the sad little man refused to allow his guards to be armed. It would have been a shame to have to kill them. They tried manfully to defend him, even though they despised him. What magnificent warriors you do craft in that vast star kingdom of yours, my Thomas.”
He could read between the lines. Incessant could well have tried to confront the Sylvan king. In his madness and self-righteous indignation the little mouse might have tried to beard the lion. And he’d been crushed without hesitation. Truly these were alien peoples. He reaffirmed his determination to maintain his distance, to resist her wiles, as she continued.
“O Thomas,” she said as she reached out and took his hand. Perhaps she understood some of what was going on in his mind. “My grandfather would not have had it happen thus. But the ambassador’s manner was intolerable! In their anger, I fear that some of the King’s Own Bodyguards took offense and killed him out of hand. Needless to say, their lives will be forfeit should Westerness demand it.”
“Aye,” he replied, for what more could you say. The Sylvan king killed the Westerness ambassador, and now he offers the lives of his bodyguards as repayment. Well, no one would miss Sir Percival Incessant, who, in the end, didn’t live up to his name. And sometimes there was something to be said for the Sylvans’ straightforward approach to life. “I’d guess that Westerness response depends on who writes the reports.”