“Or for the wine seller,” Dirk said. “Of course, those barrels could hold ale.”
“They could. At least we’re both agreed he’s not the merchant himself.”
“Of course—not well-enough dressed.” Dirk nodded at another man with a wagon, a hundred feet farther down the road and coming toward them. “Now, he’s a merchant.”
Gar looked; the man wore tight-fitting trousers and a tunic, like the carter, but his were clearly of better fabric and livelier color—deep blue for the trousers and light blue for the tunic. More importantly, he wore an open coat over them, and it was of brocade. “Yes, I’d say he’s a bit more affluent, but still has to be on the road with a wagon. Besides, he has hirelings.”
Two other wagons followed, each with a driver wearing the usual earth-toned trousers and belted tunic.
“O-ho! Here comes somebody important!” Dirk pointed. Around a curve in the road ahead came a small closed carriage, square and Spartan, painted a somber black. Before it rode two men on horseback with another two behind, dressed alike in dark red jackets and trousers with broad-brimmed, flat hats of the same color. They carried spears stepped in sockets attached to their saddles and wore swords and daggers very obviously at their belts.
“Soldiers, wearing the livery Herkimer used as models for our costumes.” Gar frowned. “Presumably, ours being brown only means we work for a different boss.”
“Yes, but ours isn’t here, and theirs is inside the carriage,” Dirk pointed out. “This might be a good time to see what the backs of the roadside trees look like.”
“I think we’d be a little obvious,” Gar replied. “We’d better brazen it out. I hope they speak our language.”
The thought hit Dirk with a shock. “My lord, we did come down here unprepared, didn’t we?”
“Not hard, when we didn’t have any information,” Gar said dryly. “But their ancestors spoke Terran Standard, so there’s no reason to think they don’t.”
“Yeah, and it’ll give us a way of guessing how restrictive their culture is,” Dirk said, smiling. “The worse their accent, the more permissive the culture—the closer to Standard, the more their authorities insist everything be done just right.”
“We should be in an excellent position to study the authorities,” Gar said, “considering who’s in the coach.”
As they passed, the soldiers saluted them. Each held his arm straight out to the side and bent up at the elbow, hand a flat blade. Gar and Dirk copied the gesture, careful to smile no more than the real soldiers did. As the coach passed, they caught a glimpse of a man in his thirties with a square black hat, and a robe that matched the color of his soldiers’ livery. He had spectacles on his nose and was trying to study some papers in spite of the coach’s lurching and swaying. Then the rear guards were saluting, Dirk and Gar were returning the salutes, and the coach was rumbling off down the road.
“Well, we passed the first test,” Dirk sighed.
“Now we know how the local military salute works,” Gar said. “Not much more than a ritualized wave of the hand, I’d say.”
“I’ll view that as a hopeful sign, if you don’t mind. What do you think of the local ruling class?”
“Professional administrator, by the look of him—not a part-timer, like the merchants of Venice or the Athenian citizen-assembly.”
“I think I prefer amateurs…”
“Oh, give this one the benefit of the doubt. At least he’s probably trained for the job.”
“Yeah, and has figured out how to hand it on to his son, definitely not his daughter. At least the amateurs don’t have a vested interest in bloating the bureaucracy.”
“You’re being unfair,” Gar chided. “One look at the man is scarcely enough proof to convict him of so many crimes.”
“Why not? He’s old enough to have children. And if he’s a trained paper-pusher, he’s part of a bureaucracy.”
“Aren’t you using a rather broad definition of ‘bureaucracy’…? Wait, what’s this?”
The torrent of babble from the curve ahead had finally become loud enough to force itself on their attention.
“A crowd,” Dirk said. “Don’t look at me that way—somebody had to state the obvious. They don’t sound threatening, anyway.”
“No, rather happy—a holiday sound, in fact. Let’s see what’s going on.”
They rounded the curve and saw peasants lining both sides of the road, chattering and gesturing to one another, smiling, bright-eyed, excited. Some had packs over their shoulders and were sharing food and drink with one another. There was a sprinkling of merchants, carters, and other wayfarers among them, laughing and sharing their own provisions.
“You were right,” Dirk said, “it is a holiday. When does the parade start?”
“Let’s join them and see if we can overhear anything.” Gar stepped off the roadway, leaning on his staff and looking about with a gentle, interested smile. Dirk followed, growling, “Why do I feel conspicuous?”
The peasants glanced up, and conversation muted for a few minutes—benign smile or not, Gar was still a scary figure. But he offered no harm, only spoke quietly with Dirk—so quietly that none of them could hear—and the people went back to chatting with one another. Dirk could almost see Gar’s ears prick up, and wondered what his own looked like—but he was hearing words that he recognized. Yes, there was an accent, broader vowels and lazier consonants, but he had no difficulty at all eavesdropping.
“I can understand them,” Gar muttered.
“Me too,” Dirk said. “That’s not a good sign.”
“No, not at all,” Gar said, with a casualness that made Dirk’s skin crawl. “It bespeaks a very rigid government, one that’s stonily conservative.”
That raised several interesting possibilities, none of which Dirk really wanted to think about at the moment. To put the unpleasant implications of this out of his mind, he paid attention to what the nearest people were saying.
“The Protector himself! What would bring him so far into the countryside?”
“I don’t know, but they say he travels around when folk least expect it, to see that his officials do as he tells them and don’t cheat.”
“Cheat him, or other folk?” The woman who had asked the question grinned. “I know, I know—neither.”
“But are they sure he’s coming?” a carter asked, frowning. “How do they know?”
“A crier came riding, calling out to all to clear the road, for the Protector would be passing!”
“I told you we should have made an earlier start,” Dirk growled. “We might have heard the leather-lungs ourselves.”
“He must be riding quite far ahead,” Gar said, surprised. “We’ve been on the road an hour already.”
“Oh, he came through last night,” one woman was telling the farmwife from the cart. “The Protector is kind enough to give us all a chance to see him.”
“And mobilize public support by making sure there’s a cheering throng all the way along,” Dirk muttered.
Far down the road, trumpets sounded. The crowd oohed and aahed, but didn’t start cheering yet.
“So much for the fanfare,” Dirk said. “When do we get the overture?”
The trumpets sounded again, then again and again, each time closer. The oohing and aahing became louder and louder. Then horsemen appeared, trotting down the road and calling out, “Make way for the Protector! Make way for he who guides and judges all the Commonwealth!”
Guardsmen in dark blue livery followed on horseback, lances low to push back peasants who were beginning to strain toward the road. Behind them came a severe, black-and-silver open carriage. Two men in charcoal-gray gowns rode in the backward-facing seat, watching a lean, grave, unsmiling man who waved to the people, turning from side to side. He wore black robes with a huge, weighty silver chain, a flat, broad-brimmed black hat, and a black beard shot through with gray.