The French and Latin words were missing, and oh, what a difference their lack made to the language! Learning Ingwinish was for Two Hawks learning a foreign tongue.
Perkunisha, the Baltic-speaking nation, consisted of Earth 1’s Germany, Holland, Denmark, Poland, and the Algonquian speakers of Earth 1’s Czechoslovakia, Kinukkinuk.
The Perkunishans seemed to be the Germans of Earth 2 as far as their industry, science, philosophy, and aggressiveness were concerned. Thirty years ago they had begun this planet’s first World War I. They had seemed on their way to the complete conquest of Europe and North Africa when a plague (the Black Plague?) had decimated Europe. Now, their armies powerful with a new generation and a militarily superior technology and a superman ideology, the Perkunishans were trying again. This time, it looked as if they might succeed.
Two Hawks saw what a difference the lack of a United States of America made in this world. Europe could not call upon them for aid against the Central European aggressors.
7
Sergeant O’Brien, despite his convictions that he was going to die, got better. Soon he was on his feet and doing simple exercises. Two Hawks was working out with him in the gymnasium one day when an orderly told him he had a visitor. Two Hawks felt apprehensive, wondering if the secret police had come for him. He followed the orderly to the visitors’ room. He was ready to kill if he had to and then to make an escape. If he was killed instead, so much the better. He was not going through that torture again.
On entering the room, his grimness dissolved into a smile. The Lady Ilmika Thorrsstein was waiting for him. She continued to sit in her chair, as befitted a member of the Blodland nobility in the presence of a commoner. However, she did reply to his smile with one of her own.
Two Hawks kissed her extended hand and said, “Ur Huskarleship (Your Ladyship).”
“Hu far’t vi thi, lautni Tva Havoken?” she said. (“How goes it with you, freeman [or Mister] Two Hawks?”)
“Ik ar farn be’er,” he said. (“I am doing better.”) “Ur Huskarleship ar mest hunlich aeksen min haelth of.” (“Your Ladyship is most gracious in asking about my health.”)
She certainly gave no hint of having recently gone through an ordeal. She was no longer the dirty, hollow-cheeked, fatigued-eyed and smelly woman he had known on the flight through the forest. She had put on some weight, rounded out nicely, and her eyes were clear, the dark circles gone. Her lips were rouged a dark red, her face was slightly powdered, and her cheeks lightly rouged. She wore one of the tall conical hats from which hung a thin blue gauze strip, the whole reminding him of the hats worn by the ladies of medieval times. Her dress was of some shiny pale white stuff, form fitting from the waist up, cut low and square at the bosom. A ruff of yellow lace circled her waist, and the skirt, held out by several stiff petticoats, fell to her ankles to shape a truncated cone. Her high-heeled shoes were of white leather and bore tiny blue puffballs on the toes.
She was very pretty. Two Hawks, looking at her, suddenly felt the thrust of desire that had been too long subdued by the rigors of the flight and then by the torture. Returning strength and long abstinence was making him extraordinarily horny, he thought. Or maybe not so extraordinarily. Just his usual state.
But this woman was not for him. He had learned of the strong class barriers that existed throughout most of Europe. They were as rigidly and harshly enforced, perhaps even more so, than they had been in, say, seventeenth-century France.
Only the country of the Hotinohsonih—“his people”—had anything approaching the American concept of democracy. This was the only nation which had given its women the right to vote. He was from a world and a time which regarded the social barriers of this world as of little importance, even ridiculous. So he could not help looking boldly at her. Some of his desire must have shown, for she lost her smile, and her eyes narrowed. He hastened to reassure her, since he did not wish to offend her and so lose his only personal contact with the outside world.
“Foryi me, faeyer Huskarle,’ he said. ‘Ik n’a seen swa bricht a faemme for maniy a daey. Yemiltsa.” (“Forgive me, fair lady. I have not seen so bright a maiden for many a day. Show mercy.”)
He added with a smile, “Besides, I am not responsible for my actions. Otherwise, I would not be here.”
She smiled, though strainedly, and said, “You are forgiven. And I am happy that you brought up the subject of your... uh... staying here.”
“Call it imprisonment,” he said. “Although I can’t complain about my treatment. They’re very nice.”
She leaned forward and said, face intent, “I don’t think you’re crazy.”
He was a little startled and then it occurred to him that she had been left alone with him. That would not have been done unless she had requested it, since she was an important person. He had learned that she was the daughter of Huskarl, that is, Lord Thorrsstein, the Blodland ambassador to the nation of Dakota. Thorrsstein and his daughter had fled towards Iroquoia when the Perkunishans invaded Dakota. The Lord and his daughter had become separated, and later Ilmika had been taken by guerrillas through the Perkunishan lines.
“What makes you think I’m not mad?” he said. He knew now that she was not here merely to make a social call.
“I just cannot believe it,” she replied. Making an effort to hide her tension, she sat back in the chair. She folded her hands on her lap and said, “If you are not crazy, then what are you?”
He decided he could not lose by telling her the truth. If she had been sent by the secret police to see if he gave her a different story, she would return with the same they had heard. However, it was not likely that the Hotinohsonih had asked her to probe for them. They would have gotten verification from Tarhe that Two Hawks was sticking to his tale.
More probably, Ilmika represented her own people, the Blodland secret agents. Perhaps they had information which the Hotinohsonih lacked. This information might have made them think that Two Hawks could be from a “parallel” universe and so had knowledge of a superior technology. The wreck of the Hiawatha could have been discovered. If it had been, it would present the finders with a disturbing puzzle. The Blodland agents, knowing of it and also of the two strangers and their story, had contacted Lady Thorrsstein. She was to question him to determine if he could be useful.
If this were the true situation, the Blodlandish were not telling their Hotinohsonih allies what they knew. The Blodlandish wanted the information for themselves.
He smiled. Even in the desperate predicament in which both allies were, one was playing against the other. Power politics and national security were as paramount here as on his Earth.
Still, the Blodlandish interest gave him a bargaining position. It might permit O’Brien and himself to escape not only from the asylum but from a country that seemed to be on its way to being defeated and occupied. So far, Blodland was not threatened by invasion.
Before starting his narrative, Two Hawks explained the concept of “parallel” universes as best he could. Ilmika listened attentively, and her questions showed that she was as intelligent as she was pretty. She had no difficulty in understanding him, but whether or not she believed him was another matter. Nevertheless, she encouraged him to go on, which meant she was willing to grant the possibility he might not be a lunatic. Or perhaps she had been told to get his entire story, even if it sounded to her like ravings.