My lady entered. Her braids hung loose, and one fair cheek was purpled with a bruise. But she said as impersonally as any sergeant reporting an assignment of pickets: “I quieted the children down.”
’Poor tiny Matilda,” murmured her husband. “Was she very much frightened?”
Lady Catherine looked indignant. “They both wanted to come fight!”
“Wait here,” he said. “I’ll go deal with Owain and the pilot.”
She drew a shaken breath. “Must I forever hide away when my lord goes into peril?”
He stopped still and looked upon her. “But I thought—” he began, oddly helpless.
“That I betrayed you merely to win home again? Aye.” She stared at the deck. “I think you’ll forgive me for that long ere I can ever forgive myself. Yet I did what seemed best… for you, too… I was confused. ’Twas like a fever dream. You should not have left me alone so long, my lord. I missed you too much.”
Very slowly he nodded. “’Tis I who must beg pardon,” he said. “God grant me years enough to become worthy of you.”
Clasping her shoulders: “But remain here. ’Tis needful you guard yon blueface. If I should kill Owain and the pilot—”
“Do that!” she cried in upsurging fury.
“I’d prefer not,” he said with the same gentleness as he used toward her. “Looking upon you, I can understand him so well. But — if worst come to worst — Branithar can guide us home. So watch him.”
She took the gun from me and sat down. The nailed captive stood rigid with defiance.
’Come, Brother Parvus,” said Sir Roger. “I may need your skill with words.”
He carried his sword and had thrust a fire gun from the weapon chest into his belt. We made our way along a corridor, up a ramp, and so to the entrance of the control turret. Its door was shut, locked from within.
Sir Roger beat upon it with the pommel of his glaive. “You two in there! he shouted. “Yield yourselves!”
“And if we do not?” Owain’s voice drifted faintly through the panels.
“If naught else,” said Roger starkly, “I’ll wreck the engines and depart in my boat, leaving you adrift. But see here: I’ve rid myself of anger. Everything has ended for the best, and we shall indeed go home after these stars have been made safe for Englishmen. You and I were friends once, Owain. Give me your hand again. I swear no harm shall come to you.”
Silence lay heavy.
Until the man behind the door said: “Aye. You were never one to break an oath, were you? Very well, come on through, Roger.”
I heard the bolt click down. The baron put his hand to the door. I know not what impelled me to say, “Wait, sire,” and shove myself before him with unheard-of ill manners.
“What is it?” He blinked, bemused in his gladness.
I opened the door and stepped over the threshold. Two iron bars smashed down on my head.
The rest of this adventure must needs be told from hearsay, for I was not to come to my senses for a week. I toppled in blood, and Sir Roger thought me slain.
The moment they saw it was not the baron they had gotten, Owain and the pilot attacked him. They were armed with two unscrewed stanchions, as long and heavy as swords. Sir Roger’s blade flashed. The pilot threw up his club. The blade glanced off in a shower of sparks. Sir Roger howled so the walls echoed. “You murderers of innocence—” His second blow knocked the bar out of a numbed hand. At his third, the blue head sprang from its shoulders and bounced down the ramp.
Catherine heard the uproar. She went to the door of the salon and looked forward, as if terror could sharpen her eyes to pierce the walls between. Branithar set his teeth together. He seized the misericord with his free hand. Muscles jumped forth in his shoulders. Few men could have drawn that blade, but Branithar did.
My lady heard the noise and whirled. Branithar was rounding the table. His right hand hung torn, astream with blood, but the knife gleamed in his left.
She raised her gun. “Back!” she yelled.
“Put that down,” he said scornfully. “You’d never use it. You never saw enough stars at Terra, with wise enough vision. If anything goes wrong in the bows, I am your only way home.’
She looked into the eyes of her husband’s enemy, and shot him dead. Then she ran toward the turret.
Sir Owain Montbelle had scampered back into that chamber. He could not fend off the sheer fury of Sir Roger’s assault. The baron drew his gun. Owain snatched up a book and held it before his breast.
“Have a care!” he panted. “This is the ship’s log. It has the notes on Terra’s position. There are no others.”
“You lie. There’s Branithar’s mind.” Nonetheless, Sir Roger thrust the gun back in his belt as he stalked forward. “I’m sorry to outrage clean steel with your blood. For you killed Brother Parvus and you’re going to die.”
Owain poised. His stanchion was a clumsy weapon. But he raised his arm and hurled it. Struck across the brow, Sir Roger lurched backward. Owain sprang, snatched the gun from the stunned man’s belt, and dodged a feeble sword-slash. He scuttled clear, yelling his triumph. Roger stumbled toward him. Owain too aim.
Catherine appeared in the door. Her gun flamed. The book of her journey vanished in smoke and ash. Owain screamed in anguish. Coldly, she fired again, and he fell.
She flung herself into Roger’s arms and wept. He comforted her. Yet I wonder which of them gave the most strength to the other.
Afterward he said ruefully: “I fear we’ve managed ill. Now the way home is indeed lost.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered. “Where you are, there is England.”
Epilogue
A noise of trumpets and cloven air broke loose. The captain laid the typescript down and pressed an intercom button. “What’s going on?” he snapped.
“That eight-legged seneschal up at the castle finally got hold of his boss, sir,” answered the voice of the sociotech. “As near as I can make out, the planetary duke was out on safari, and it took all this while to locate him. He uses a whole continent for his hunting preserve. Anyhow, he’s just now arriving. Come see the show. A hundred antigrav aircraft — good Lord! — the ones that’ve landed are disgorging horsemen!”
“Ceremonial, no doubt. Just a minute and I’ll be there.” The captain glared at the typescript. He had read about halfway through it. How could he talk intelligently to this fantastic overlord without some inkling of what had really developed out here?
He skimmed hastily, page after page. The chronicle of the Wersgor Crusade was long and thunderous. Suffice it to read the conclusion, how King Roger I was crowned by the Archbishop of New Canterbury, and reigned for many fruitful years.
But what had happened? Oh, sure, one way or another the English won their battles. Eventually they acquired enough actual strength to be independent of their leader’s luck and cunning. But their society! How could even their language, let alone their institutions, have survived contact with old and sophisticated civilizations? Hang it, why had the sociotech translated this long-winded Brother Parvus at all, unless some significant data were included? . … Wait. Yes. A passage near the end caught the captain’s eye. He read:
“… I have remarked that Sir Roger de Tourneville established the feudal system on newly conquered worlds given into his care by the allies. Some latterday mockers of my noble master have implied he did this only because he knew nothing better to do. I refute this. As I said before, the collapse of Wersgorixan was not unlike the collapse of Rome, and similar problems found a similar answer. His advantage lay in having that answer ready to hand, the experience of many Terrestrial centuries.