The room beyond was the most ancient part of the building. Age-cracked timber columns, grotesquely carved with gods and heroes, upheld a low roof. A fire pit in the floor curled smoke toward a hole; enough stayed behind for Jason’s eyes to sting. They could easily have given their chief magistrate a modern office, he thought—but no, because his ancestors had judged in this kennel, so must he.
Light filtering through slit windows touched the craggy features of Bela and lost itself in shadow. The Voivode was thickset and grayhaired; his features bespoke a considerable admixture of Tyrker chromosomes. He sat a wooden throne, his body wrapped in a blanket, horns and feathers on his head. His left hand bore a horse-tailed staff and a drawn saber was laid across his lap.
“Greeting, Jason Philippou,” he said gravely. He gestured at a stool. “Be seated.”
“I thank my lord.” The Eutopian remembered how his own people had outgrown titles.
“Are you prepared to speak truth?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Abruptly the figure relaxed, crossed legs and extracted a cigar from beneath the blanket. “Smoke? No? Well, I will.” A smile meshed the leathery face in wrinkles. “You being a foreigner, I needn’t keep up this damned ceremony.”
Jason tried to reply in kind. “That’s a relief. We haven’t much in the Peloponnesian Republic.”
“Your home country, eh? I hear things aren’t going so well there.”
“No. Homeland grows old. We look to Westfall for our tomorrows.”
“You said last night that you came to Norland as a trader.”
“To negotiate a commercial agreement.” Jason was staying as near his cover story as possible. You couldn’t tell different histories that the Hellenes had invented the parachronion. Besides changing the very conditions that were being studied, it would be too cruel to let men know that other men lived in perfection. “My country is interested in buying lumber and furs.”
“Jah. So Ottar invited you to stay with him. I can grasp why. We don’t see many Homelanders. But one day he was after your blood. What happened?”
Jason might have claimed privacy, but that wouldn’t have sat well. And an outright lie was dangerous; before this throne, one was automatically under oath. “To a degree, no doubt, the fault was mine,” he said. “One of his family, almost grown, was attracted to me and—I had been long away from my wife, and everyone had told me the Danskar hold with freedom before marriage, and—well, I meant no harm. I merely encouraged—But Ottar found out, and challenged me.”
“Why did you not meet him?”
No use to say that a civilized man did not engage in violence when any alternative existed. “Consider, my lord,” Jason said. “If I lost, I’d be dead. If I won, that would be the end of my company’s project. The Ottarssons would never have taken weregild, would they? No, at the bare least they’d ban us all from their land. And Peloponnesus needs that timber. I thought I’d do best to escape. Later my associates could disown me before Norland.”
“Strange reasoning. But you’re loyal, anyhow. What do you ask of me?”
“Only safe conduct to—Steinvik.” Jason almost said “Neathenai.” He checked his eagerness. “We have a factor there, and a ship.”
Bela streamed smoke from his mouth and scowled at the glowing cigar end. “I’d like to know why Ottar grew wrathful. Doesn’t sound like him. Though I suppose, when a man’s daughter is involved, he doesn’t feel so lenient.” He hunched forward. “For me,” he said harshly, “the important thing is that armed Norlanders crossed my border without asking.”
“A grievous violation of your rights, true.”
Bela uttered a horseman’s obscenity. “You don’t understand, you. Borders aren’t sacred because Attila wills it, whatever the shamans prate. They’re sacred because that’s the only way to keep the peace. If I don’t openly resent this crossing, and punish Ottar for it, some hothead might well someday be tempted; and now everyone has nuclear weapons.”
“I don’t want war on my account!” Jason exclaimed, appalled. “Send me back to him first!”
“Oh no, no such nonsense. Ottar’s punishment shall be that I deny him his revenge, regardless of the rights and wrongs of your case. He’ll swallow that.”
Bela rose. He put his cigar in an ashtray, lifted the saber, and all at once he was transfigured. A heathen god might have spoken: “Hence-forward, Jason Philippou, you are peace-holy in Dakoty. While you remain beneath our shield, ill done you is ill done me, my house and my people. So help me the Three!”
Self-command broke down. Jason went on his knees and gasped his thanks.
“Enough,” Bela grunted. “Let’s arrange for your transportation as fast as may be. I’ll send you by air, with a military squadron. But of course I’ll need permission from the realms you’ll cross. That will take time. Go back, relax, I’ll have you called when everything’s ready.”
Jason left, still shivering.
He spent a pleasant couple of hours adrift in the castle and its courtyards. The young men of Bela’s retinue were eager to show off before a Homelander. He had to grant the picturesqueness of their riding, wrestling, shooting and riddling contests; something stirred in him as he listened to tales of faring over the plains and into the forests and by river to Unnborg’s fabled metropolis; the chant of a bard awakened glories which went deeper than the history told, down to the instincts of man the killer ape.
But these are precisely the bright temptations that we have turned our backs on in Eutopia. For we deny that we are apes. We are men who can reason. In that lies our manhood.
I am going home. I am going home. I am going home.
A servant tapped his arm. “The Voivode wants you.” It was a frightened voice.
Jason hastened back. What had gone wrong? He was not taken to the room of the high seat. Instead, Bela awaited him on a parapet. Two men-at-arms stood at attention behind, faces blank under the plumed helmets.
The day and the breeze were mocked by Bela’s look. He spat on Jason’s feet. “Ottar has called me,” he said.
“I— Did he say—”
“And I thought you were only trying to bed a girl! Not seeking to destroy the house that befriended you!”
“My lord—”
“Have no fears. You sucked my oath out of me. Now I must spend years trying to make amends to Ottar for cheating him.”
“But—” Calm! Calm! You might have expected this.
“You will not ride in a warcraft. You’ll have your escort, yes. But the machine that carries you must be burned afterward. Now go wait by the stables, next to the dung heap, till we’re ready.”
“I meant no harm,” Jason protested. “I did not know.”
“Take him away before I kill him,” Bela ordered.
Steinvik was old. These narrow cobbled streets, these gaunt houses, had seen dragon ships. But the same wind blew off the Atlantic, salt and fresh, to drive from Jason the last hurt of that sullenness which had ridden here with him. He pushed whistling through the crowds.
A man of Westfall, or America, would have slunk back. Had he not failed? Must he not be replaced by someone whose cover story bore no hint of Hellas? But they saw with clear eyes in Eutopia. His failure was due to an honest mistake: a mistake he would not have made had they taught him more carefully before sending him out. One learns by error.
The memory of people in Ernvik and Varady—gusty, generous people whose friendship he would have liked to keep—had nagged him awhile. But he put that aside too. There were other worlds, an endlessness of them.