The Wersgor shied a trifle, as the huge black stallion and the iron tower astride it loomed above him. Then he gathered a shaky breath and said, “If you behave yourselves, I will not destroy you for the space of this discussion.
Sir Roger laughed when I had fumblingly translated. “Tell him,” he ordered me, “that I in turn will hold my private lightnings in check, though they are so powerful I can’t swear they may not trickle forth and blast his camp to ruin if he moves too swiftly.”
“But you haven’t any such lightnings at your command, sire,” I protested. “It wouldn’t be honest to claim you do.”
“You will render my words faithfully and with a straight face, Brother Parvus,” he said, “or discover something about thunderbolts.”
I obeyed. In what follows I shall as usual make no note of the difficulties of translation. My Wersgor vocabulary was limited, and I daresay my grammar was ludicrous. In all events, I was only the parchment on which these puissant ones wrote, erased, and wrote again. Aye, in truth I felt like a palimpsest ere that hour was done.
Oh, the things I was forced to say! Above all men do I reverence that valiant and gentle knight Sir Roger de Tourneville. Yet when he blandly spoke of his English estate — the small one, which only took up three planets — and of his personal defense of Roncesvaux against four million paynim, and his singlehanded capture of Constantinople on a wager, and the time guesting in France when he accepted his host’s invitation to exercise the droit de seigneur for two hundred peasant weddings on the same day — and more and more — his words nigh choked me, though I am accounted well versed both in courtly romances and the lives of the saints. My sole consolation was that little of this shameless mendacity got through the language difficulties, the Wersgor herald understanding merely (after a few attempts to impress us) that here was a person who could outbiuster him any day of the week.
Therefore he agreed on behalf of his lord that there would be a truce while matters were discussed in a shelter to be erected midway between the two camps. Each side might send a score of people thither at high noon, unarmed. While the truce lasted, no ships were to be flown within sight of either camp.
“So!” exclaimed Sir Roger gaily, as we cantered back. “I’ve not done so ill, have I?”
“K-k-k-k,” I answered. He slowed to a smoother pace, and I tried again: “Indeed, sire, St. George — or more likely, I fear, St. Dismas, patron of thieves — must have watched over you. And yet—”
“Yes?” he prompted me. “Be not afraid to speak your mind, Brother Parvus.” With a kindness wholly unmerited: “Ofttimes I think you’ve more head on those skinny shoulders than all my captains lumped together.”
’Well, my lord,” I blurted, “you’ve wrung concessions from them for a while. As you foretold, they are being cautious whilst they study us. And yet, how long can we hope to fool them? They have been an imperial race for centuries. They must have experience of many strange peoples living under many different conditions. From our small numbers, our antiquated weapons, our lack of home-built spaceships, will they not soon deduce the truth and attack us with overwhelming force?”
His lips thinned. He looked toward the pavilion which housed his lady and children.
“Of course,” he said. “I hope but to stay their hand a short while.”
“And what then?” I pursued him.
“I don’t know.” Whirling on me, fierce as a stooping hawk, he added: “But ’tis my secret, d’ you understand? I tell it to you as if in confession. Let it come out, let our folk know how troubled and planless I truly am … and we’re all done.”
I nodded. Sir Roger struck spurs to his horse and galloped into camp, shouting like a boy.
Chapter IX
During the long wait before Tharixan reached its noontide, my master summoned his captains to a council. A trestle table was erected before the central building, and there we all sat.
“By God’s grace,” he said, “we’re spared awhile. You’ll note that I’ve even made them land all their ships. I’ll wrangle to win us as much more respite as may be. That time must be put to use. We must strengthen our defenses. Also, we’ll ransack this fort, seeking especially maps, books, and other sources of information. Those of our men who’re at all gifted in the mechanic arts must study and test every machine we find, so that we can learn how to erect force screens and fly and otherwise match our foes. But all this has to be done secretly, in places hidden from enemy eyes. For if ever they learn we don’t already know all about such implements—” He smiled and drew a finger across his throat.
Good Father Simon, his chaplain, turned a little green. “Must you?” he said faintly.
Sir Roger nodded at him. “I’ve work for you, too. I shall need Brother Parvus to interpret Wersgor for me. But we have one prisoner, Branithar, who speaks Latin—”
“I would not say that, sire,” I interrupted. “His declensions are atrocious, and what he does to irregular verbs may not be described in gentle company.”
“Nevertheless, until he’s mastered enough English, a cleric is needed to talk to him. You see, he must explain whatever our students of the captured engines do not understand, and must interpret for any other Wersgor prisoners whom we may question.”
“Ah, but will he do so?” said Father Simon. “He is a most recalcitrant heathen, my son, if indeed he has any soul at all. Why, only a few days ago on the ship, in hopes of softening his hard heart, I stood in his cell reading aloud the generations from Adam to Noah, and had scarcely gotten past Jared when I saw that he had fallen asleep!’
“Have him brought hither,” commanded my lord. “Also, find One-Eyed Hubert and tell him to come in full regalia.”
While we waited, talking in hushed voices, Alfred Edgarson noticed how I sat quiet. “Well, now, Brother Parvus,” he boomed, “what ails you? Methinks you’ve little to fear, being a godly fellow. Even the rest of us, if we conduct ourselves well, have naught to fear but a sweating time in Purgatory. And then we’ll join St. Michael at sentry-go on heaven’s walls. Not so?”
I was loath to dishearten them by voicing what had occurred to me, but when they insisted, I said, “Alas, good men, worse may already have befallen us.”
“Well?” barked Sir Brian Fitz-William. “What is it? Don’t just sit there sniveling!”
“We had no sure way to tell time on the voyage hither,” I whispered. “Hourglasses are too inaccurate, and since reaching this devil-made place we’ve neglected even to turn them. How long is the day here? What time is it on our earth?”
Sir Brian looked a trifle blank. “Indeed, I know not. What of it?”
“I presume you had a haunch of beef to break your fast,” I said. “Are you sure it is not Friday?”
They gasped and regarded each other with round eyes.
“When is it Sunday?” I cried. “Will you tell me the date of Advent? How shall we observe Lent and Easter, with two moons morris-dancing about to confuse the issue?”
Thomas Bullard buried his face in his hands. “We’re ruined!”
Sir Roger stood up. “No!” he shouted into the strickenness. “I’m no priest, nor even very godly. But did not Our Lord himself say the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath?”
Father Simon looked doubtful. “I can grant special dispensations under extraordinary circumstances,” he said, “but I am really not sure how far I can strain such powers.”
“I like it not,” mumbled Bullard. “I take this to be a sign that Cod has turned His face from us, withdrawing the due times of the fasts and sacraments.”