“E’en so, I had hoped thou wouldst not take too great a chance,” Gwen said. “What had the beastmen come home to?”
“A bend of land in the coastline,” Toby explained, “low land, with high sky-reaching cliffs behind it a mile or two from shore.”
Rod nodded. “How big was the low land?”
“Mayhap some five miles wide.”
“He describes an alluvial plain,” Fess’s voice murmured in Rod’s ear.
“You’re a better observer than I knew,” Rod told the youth. “What was on the plain?”
“A village.” Toby looked up at him. “Huts of daub and wattle, at a guess—round and with thatched roofs. Around and about their fields they did lie, with greening crops.”
“Farmers?” Rod frowned, puzzled. “Not the kind of people you’d expect to go pillaging. Any idea how many huts there were?”
Toby shook his head. “More than I could count at ease, Lord Warlock. ‘Twas as far across as any village I ha’ seen in Gramarye.”
“Village,” Rod repeated. “Not a town?”
Toby pursed his lips. “Well… mayhap a small town… Still, the houses were set far apart.”
“Maybe a thousand households, then. How’d they react when they saw the dragon ship come back?”
“They did not,” said Toby.
“What?” Rod gawked. “They didn’t react? Not at all?”
“Nay—they did not see it. ‘Twas not yet dawn, as I’ve said, and the dragon ship did not come to the village. Nay, it sailed instead to southward, and found a narrow river-mouth just where the cliffs came down to join the water. Then the beast-men unshipped oars and furled their sail and rowed their ship upstream, until they slipped into a crack within the cliff-wall from which their river issued.”
“A crack.” Rod kept his face expressionless.
Toby nodded. “ ‘Twas a crack thou couldst have marched thy Flying Legion through, milord; but in that vast wall of rock ’twas nonetheless a crack.”
“So they sailed into a river-pass.” Rod frowned, trying to make sense of it. “What happened then?”
“Naught to speak of. When they slipped into the cliff-face, I dropped down to the cliff-top, where I lay and watched. Anon, I saw them slip out on a footpath, without their shields or helmets, and naught of weapons save the knives at their belts. They trudged across the plain, back to the village. I did not follow, for I feared sighting by an early-riser.”
Rod nodded. “Wise. After all, we found out everything we really needed to know.” He frowned. “Maybe more.”
“What then?” Brom demanded.
Toby spread his hands. “Naught. The work was done… and I commenced to feel as weary as though I’d not had a night of sleep.”
“Not surprising, with the psychic blast you pulled yesterday,” Rod reminded him. “And teleporting takes some energy out of a man too, I’ll bet.”
“I think that it doth,” Toby agreed, “though I’d not noticed it aforetime.”
“Well, you’re not as young as you used to be. What are you now, nineteen?”
“Twenty,” Toby answered, irritated.
“That’s right, it’s a huge difference. But that does mean your body’s stopped growing, and you no longer have that frantic, adolescent energy-surplus. Besides, what’s the furthest you’ve ever teleported before?”
“On thine affairs, some ten or twenty miles.”
“Well, this time, you jumped… oh, let’s see now…” Rod stared off into space. “All night in a sailing ship… let’s assume the wind was behind it… say, ten miles an hour. Maybe ten hours, factored by Finagle’s Variable Constant…” He looked back at Toby. “You jumped a hundred miles or more. Twice. No wonder you’re tired.”
Toby answered with a snore.
“Take him up,” Brom instructed the men-at-arms, “and bear him gently to his bed. He hath done great service for our land this morn.”
One of the soldiers bent to gather up Toby’s legs, but the other stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Nay. Only lift the chair.” The first soldier looked up, nodded approvingly, and picked up the chair legs as his companion lifted the back. Rod instantly memorized the second one’s face, marking him as one who might have potential.
The door closed behind them, and Brom turned on Rod. “What makest thou of this, Lord Warlock?”
“Confusion,” Rod answered promptly. “For openers, I want him to draw a map when he wakes up. Beyond that?” He shrugged. “We do have a tidy little mystery, don’t we?”
“Aye,” Brom agreed. “Why would they come so silently back to their lair?”
“Mayhap ‘twas not all returned from this sally,” Tuan offered, “and they feared the censure of the slain ones’ kin.”
“Possible, I suppose.” Rod frowned. “But it doesn’t seem very likely. I mean, I suppose there really are some hard-hearted cultures who take that attitude—you know, ‘Return with your shield, or on it,’ and all that. But their mission wasn’t exactly a total flop, you know. Their ship did come back stuffed. They took everything that wasn’t nailed down before they burned the stuff that was.”
“E’en so, they did have dead,” said Brom, “and if they’d gained recruits by promising great bounty with little danger, they would now have reason to fear the wrath of the kin of the slain ones.”
“Ah, I see you know the ways of recruiting-sergeants,” Rod said brightly. “But they’d have to face that anger anyway as soon as the rest of the villagers found out they were back. I mean, sooner or later, somebody was bound to notice they were there. So why sneak in?”
Catharine looked up slowly, her face lighting. “They stole back like thieves in the night, did they not?”
Rod frowned and nodded. “Yeah. How does that…” Then his eyes widened. “Of course! Your Majesty has it!”
“What?” Brom looked from one to the other, frowning.
“Aye, she hath!” Gwen jumped up. “The whole of this expedition was done in secret!”
“Aye!” Tuan’s eyes fired. “Indeed, that hath the ring of truth!”
“Hypothesis does not account for all available data,” Fess said flatly behind Rod’s ear.
“But it’s got the right feel,” Rod objected. “Now, just how they managed to hide the little fact that they were gone for thirty-six hours, I don’t know; but I could think of a few ways, myself.”
Gwen looked up, alarmed.
“That means, Your Majesty,” Rod said, hastily turning to the King, “that we’re not being attacked by a hostile nation.”
“Nay, only thieves who come in ships.” Tuan frowned. “Is there not a word for such as they?”
“Yeah; they call ‘em ‘pirates.’ ” Rod wasn’t surprised that the people of Gramarye had forgotten the term; their culture was restricted to one huge island and had been isolated for centuries.
Tuan frowned thoughtfully, gazing off into space. “How doth one fight a seaborne bandit?”
“By knowing something about the sea.” Rod turned to Brom. “Is there anybody in Gramarye who does?”
Brom frowned. “We have some fisherfolk in villages along the coast.”
“Then, get ‘em,” Rod called back over his shoulder as he headed for the door. “Get me a fisherman who knows something about the winds and the coastlines.”
“An thou wishest it, we shall. But where dost thou go, Lord Warlock?”
“To find out what’s current,” Rod called back.
“But there’s got to be a current here somewhere!”
“They are not visible on standard reflected-light photographs, Rod,” Fess explained, “and when we arrived on Gramarye we had no reason to take infrared stills.”
Rod’s starship was buried under ten feet of clay in a meadow a few hours ride from Runnymede. He had persuaded the elves to dig a tunnel to it so he could visit it whenever he wanted.
Now, for instance. He was enjoying the rare luxury of Terran Scotch while he pored over a set of still pictures on the chart-table screen. “I don’t see anything, Fess.”