The people cheered. The people went crazy, throwing their caps in the air, waving frantically, crowding forward so that the two guards who followed the carriage had to ride by its rear wheels; their halberds down to push the crowd away. Dirk and Gar craned their necks with the rest, very interested to have a look at a high executive, or whatever he was, of this strange backward planet on which they had landed. The leading guards came up, their pikes low, and Dirk and Gar leaped back with the rest.
Then the carriage spun by, and for a second or two, the Protector was looking right at them, waving rather wearily. He looked away, turning to the other side of the road, and the rear guards came up. They passed, and the crowd moaned with disappointment—though whether it was at the briefness of the Protector’s appearance, or at having to go back to work, Gar and Dirk couldn’t guess. They certainly stretched the holiday out as long as they could, turning to one another and talking excitedly.
“He was so lofty, so commanding!” one woman burbled to another.
“But so weary!” her companion replied. “The poor man, with the weight of us all on his shoulders!”
“I have lived all my life waiting for this day,” a man sighed, “and I shall tell my grandchildren of it!”
“Was he not grand to look upon?” a youth asked Dirk, eyes glowing.
“Very impressive,” Dirk replied. “You’ve never seen him before, then.”
“I?” The youth laughed. “I haven’t even seen twenty summers, sir! It would have been rare good fortune for me to have seen him.”
An older man looked keenly at them. “But you have seen him before, have you?”
“One of the benefits of being in arms,” Dirk answered, smiling, “and of being sent on missions now and again.” Vague as the answer was, it seemed to satisfy the man—perhaps because it was so vague that he could read into it whatever he wanted. He was turning away to exchange exclamations with a friend, when a clarion voice called, “Hear ye, hear ye! Listen to the magistrate!”
The companions turned and looked. A man in a dark red robe stood in the center of the road, hands folded across his stomach and almost hidden by his long, full sleeves. He was young, perhaps in his late twenties, but already had an air of authority that seemed to assume no one would even think of disobeying. Gradually, the crowd quieted, and the magistrate called out, “You have seen, good people! It has been a wonderful morning for us all, for rarely indeed are we fortunate enough to see the man who is Protector of all this land, Reeve of all reeves, Magistrate of all magistrates! Treasure the memory, and speak of it to one another, the more surely to engrave it on your hearts! But the time for gazing is past, and the time for your work has come again! Go now, to your homes and fields and shops! Talk still about the delight of it all, but go!”
The buzz of conversation started up again, and the people turned away, some back into the fields that bordered the road but most away down the cobblestones, presumably to the lanes that led to their villages.
“I think we’d better go with them,” Gar said.
“Yes, as far from that red robe as possible,” Dirk agreed. “I smell authority, and I’d just as soon avoid it until I know whether or not the aroma is poisonous.”
They set off, quickly working their way into the center of the throng. The magistrate’s guards glanced briefly at the tall figure in the brown livery, but didn’t seem to think it all that unusual, for they turned back to attending their young master as he mounted a tall roan. They set off down the road, and were soon far enough away for Dirk and Gar to feel safe. They dropped back from the peasant throng until they were out of earshot.
“So,” Dirk said, “it seems we lucked into getting a look at the chief executive after all.”
“Yes, but is he only the executive, or the whole government?” Gar asked.
“They did call him ‘Magistrate of all magistrates’,” Dirk said, “but they didn’t say anything about who enforces the laws.”
“I don’t think he’s a king of any sort,” Gar said, “though he might serve one.”
“Could be, but I think the herald would have mentioned that among his other titles,” Dirk said thoughtfully. “Apparently the guy in the red robe is his local representative.”
“Yes—very young to be a magistrate, don’t you think?” Gar asked. “I thought the office usually went to a minor local aristocrat, or a businessman who has managed to build up enough of a fortune to build himself a big house and spread a few bribes.”
Dirk shrugged. “Maybe he’s just finished law school, and this is his internship.”
“That seems unlikely,” Gar said slowly, “but the idea of having finished some sort of training does strike a bell.”
“Let’s just hope it’s not the alarm,” Dirk replied. “You know, I’m beginning to feel a little too visible in this soldier outfit.”
“So am I, but we don’t know if it would be safe to travel in any other disguise,” Gar said. “We need information, Dirk, in a bad way.”
“Yes, and I know what that means,” Dirk sighed.
Gar nodded. “A local, preferably one who’s in trouble with the authorities for the right reasons.”
“Yes, for doing what his conscience tells him when the magistrate tells him not to. If we don’t find one, can we declare this planet to be well-governed, and leave?”
Gar was silent for the next few paces, then said, “The Protector did seem to be very popular—but that might have been simply because he was the head of the government, and a rarity. Still, if the only outlaws we find are the kind who have no conscience, or are just out for themselves no matter who gets hurt—well, yes, I suppose that will be proof enough.”
Dirk loosed a huge sigh of relief.
CHAPTER 3
The youth dashed from cottage to cottage, hammering on the door and calling, “A minstrel! A minstrel! Come and hear!”
Orgoru looked up from the cane chair seat he was weaving—badly, his mother was sure to tell him—with his heart hammering. A minstrel! News of the outside world, songs of the great days of old! But Orgoru couldn’t let his fellow villagers see how excited he was—they mocked him so often for his plumpness, his moon-face, and his clumsiness, but most of all for his fumbling attempts at conversation and his unerring knack for always saying the wrong thing, that the only way left for him to have a shred of dignity was to seem bored with everything that went on in his village, even though, in his heart, he yearned for Althea, the brightest and prettiest of the girls, for her sparkling laugh and bright eyes, for her sheer delight in life that surely must catch up any man who was lucky enough to win her favor.
But she had mocked him too, and scorned him. They all had, all the young folk of his own generation, and most of the elders—even some of the children! So he ambled nonchalantly toward the village center, even though the shouts of surprise and bursts of laughter told him that the minstrel had already begun to tell the news, and in a way most entertaining, too. Besides, he told himself, he didn’t really care what happened in the world today. All that really mattered was the singing, the glorious stories of the days of old, of brave knights in shining armor, of tournaments and quests and beautiful princesses to rescue. By the time he came to the village square, he believed it himself.
And he was in time! As he came up, he saw the minstrel swing his lute from his back and begin to pluck it. He watched between the beefy shoulders of two other young men, Clyde and Dale—but Clyde glanced at him, made a face, and nudged Dale, who looked up, saw Orgoru, grinned, and stepped closer to Clyde, shoulder to shoulder, blocking the troubadour from his sight. Orgoru ground his teeth, but managed a look of disdain and stubbornly refused to give them the satisfaction of seeing him move about, trying for a look around them or for a better place among the other people—who would only do the same, anyway. Orgoru knew from bitter experience that everyone would deliver the riotous joke of blocking his sight, unless Ciletha or one of the other, plainer girls took pity on him and pulled him in to share her looking-place—which would be even more embarrassing. Besides, Orgoru knew that their motives weren’t just pity—they were worried about marrying, and thought any husband would be better than none. Orgoru couldn’t bring himself to accept either reason for their friendship—both were too humiliating: pity and being last choice.