The man in white grunted. “Well, to each his own, I don’t hold with monarchies myself, having to renew your damned crown every five years, make concessions to the plebs and scrubs: poxy business, elections. No. But of course, no reflections on your own local king, mind.” Having probably a notion of quickly changing the subject of his probable tactlessness, the Gentleman added, “Kind of young aren’t you, a king’s private man?”
The subject of his youth being a somewhat touchy one with Jon-Joras, he brushed back his shock of black hair and said, a bit stiffly, “Por-Paulo is a good man.” His youth — and how he came, despite it, to hold his position. Brains, ability, judgment, and a top rating at the Collegium, all good reasons, sufficient ones, no doubt. But when a young man is young, and the son of a young (and lovely) mother, when he cannot remember his father, and when rivals in his peer group are ready enough to hint that he need look no further for his real paternity than the Magnate with whom his mother is most often seen, why—
“No offense,” repeated the older man. Then, “Your customs don’t forbid self-introductions, do they? Good. Allow me, then.” He stopped, put his hands out, palms up. “Aëlorix,” he said.
Jon-Joras stated his name, placed his hands, palms down, on the other’s. Aëlorix said, formally, “I am yours and mine are yours.”
Thankful that he had taken the trouble to look into local ways, Jon-Joras said, “Unworthy.” Behind them, the musics struck up a tune of sorts and Narthy was led around the dead dragon. Aëlorix raised his eyebrows and made a disrespectful noise.
“Base-born, I shouldn’t wonder,” he growled, indicating the triumphing chief commissioner with a jerk of his head. “Roedeskant is a good Huntsman, none better. But he knows his place, more than I can say for a lot of basies, local and otherwise, I remember when he was one of my old father’s chick-boys. Fact. Where are you at, in the State?”
An implausible vision of the hefty Chief Huntsman as a bare-legged boy chasing dragon-chicks through the woods and thickets made Jon-Joras think a moment before he was able to answer the question. The — the State … oh, yes… confusing local speech-way: if the City proper was termed “the State,” what did they call the whole City-State? Answer: by its name, of course. In this case, Peramis.
He said that he was staying at the Lodge. “That’s no good,” Aëlorix shook his head. From somewhere deep in the woods a faint bellow sounded over the raucous music, and the higher note of another dragon almost at once seemed to respond to it. Instantly diverted and alert, the Gentleman cocked his head, harkened a moment, pointed. “Off there. A big cow-drag, by the sound of her. Word of advice. When you hear those love-calls, don’t go to eavesdrop… No, the Lodge is no good. Stay with me. At Aëlorix. What? Till your boss-chap arrives.”
Jon-Joras, sensible of the compliment, flushed slightly. An invitation to stay at the Gentleman’s seat, and the one from which he took his name and style—“Only proper, courteous, a king’s private man,” he heard his would-be host say — no common compliment, from all he’d heard and seen about the Gentlemen in the short time he’d been here on Prime World (Earth, the locals called it; name sounding so startlingly archaic on out-world ears). He could hardly refuse, of course. More — he wanted to accept.
He wanted to see for himself what the semi-feudal life was like at first hand. Then, it was his duty to his elected king, too: the more contacts he made, the more pleasant he could make Por-Paulo’s stay. Only—
“Would it not be difficult,” he said, slowly, “if I am there, where I wish to be, to coordinate my work with Jetro Yi?”
For answer, the Gentleman pulled out an instrument like a whistle, blew a couple of notes on it. Immediately a man detached himself from the throng and came running towards them. “Company Yi,” called Aëlorix, as soon as his servant was within hearing distance. The man nodded, made a sketchy, informal salute, and ran back. In a few moments he returned with Jetro, the latter not running, but coming at quite a brisk walk.
“Company, I want to host this young fellow at Aëlor’.”
Yi made his eyes go round, as if astonished there could be any objection. “Of course,” he said. “As the High Nascence wishes.”
“You’re to keep in touch with him,” the Gentleman ordered, as casually authoritative as if he were a director of the Company, “twice a day. And have his things sent over as soon as you get back to the State.”
“Of course — of course—”
“Get along, now.”
As Yi, having bowed almost to his navel, departed, Aëlorix said, without malice, “Flunky…”
Narthy was now making the first cut in the green-black hide. The skinners would do the rest of the work later, and, before he left, the Chief Commissioner (now “Hunter,” too) would be presented with his silver-mounted belt, his braided hatband, and enough dragon skin to upholster all the seats and sofas in his villa if he desired to. The cost of tanning, like everything else, was included in the immense fee — in this case, mined and mulcted from the rich flesh of The Snake Worlds — which he had paid in advance to the Hunt Company.
Somewhere downwind the cow-drag once again blared her presence and her need; again, replying and following, the bull bellowed. Aëlorix listened, his face puckered.
He shook his head, seemed faintly puzzled, faintly disturbed. Jon-Joras asked if anything was wrong.
“No… Not really at all. I know the cow… don’t mean we’ve met, socially, but one becomes familiar with the calls of all the drags around, sooner or later… But I don’t know the bull. Well, well.” He took his guest by the arm. “Come along. Aëlorix, ho!”
Aëlorix-the-place seemed less an estate than a city-state of its own, repeating on a smaller scale the pattern into which all the civilized parts of ancient Earth had formed after the planet’s emergence from the dark and painful chaos of the Kar-chee Reign. Its fields and groves were pleasant to see after the somber forests, and at first Jon-Joras could not tell which of the many wooden buildings clustering closely where brook and river met was supposed to be his host’s seat.
A scene in the market-place or courtyard quickly diverted his thoughts from this. A group was gathered around two men dressed in dirty hides who were arguing with what, by his manner, appeared to be an upper servant. This one looked up at the entrance of the Gentleman and said, “Ah, here’s His Nascence.”
“Here’s the Big,” muttered one of the men in leather-expressing the same thought in cruder speech. They looked to be brothers. And they looked sullen. One of them now picked up a filthy fiber bag, tumbled its contents on the cobbled ground. Jon-Joras stepped back. They were the severed heads of animals, one huge one with mottled teeth and bloody muzzle, the others tiny.
“There, now, Big,” the man rumbled. “Look a’ them!”
“Mmm…” Aëlorix, noncommittal, gazed down. “What say, Puedeskant? Eh?”
“They gets their yearly dole,” his man growled, stubborn.
“But look a’ the size a’ she!” one of the brothers protested. “Now, Big, ain’t such a karchen sizey bitch — and all o’ them karchen pups, look how many! — ain’t them worth a bonus, Big?”
Aëlorix grunted, prepared to move on, paused. To Puedeskant he said, “Give them some fish, then.” The brothers seemed a little appeased. Jon-Joras, looking back, saw the steward unclasp a knife and slash the ears of the strange animals. His host, following the look, smiled. “So they don’t take the heads elsewhere, try the same trick. Dirty chaps.”
“But who are they?”