Bela repeated in Magyar, then turned back to Nils. "Imre would like to become fluent in Anglic. And he believes it would be better to learn it from you than from some other tutor. You cannot lapse into Magyar, and in the learning he hopes to hear about lands and customs that we know little of in our land. Will you teach him?"
"I'll be glad to."
The boy addressed Nils directly now, in Anglic.
"Thank you," he said carefully, holding out his hand. Nils shook it.
"He would like to begin after supper this evening," Bela said, "in the outer hall, for it's always open and the benches there are comfortable. If he can't be there, he'll get word to you. Is that all right?"
"Certainly," said Nils, and Imre Rakosi left.
"Are squires here the sons of knights only?" Nils asked.
"Usually. This one is the son of Lord Istvan Rakosi of the eastern marches."
"And was he sponsored earlier by the older king, Janos II?"
"No, he's been with Janos III for almost eight years, since the boy was seven and old enough to serve as a page. The king is a widower, and childless," the sergeant went on. "This boy is like a son to him. And he's a good lad, as Janos is a good master."
Nils had the third and fourth watches-from 0800 to 1600-and his duties were primarily two. When Janos held court, Nils was one of his personal guards, standing behind his throne to its right. At other hours, when Janos was in the throne room, Nils's post was outside the thick door.
And in a chamber behind the throne room, a lean, dark-brown man sat in a black robe reading the mind of the king's visitors. But always, whether Nils stood by the throne or outside the heavy door, the secret counselor monitored the big warrior's mind with one small part of his superbly sensitive psychic awareness. He received almost nothing in the way of either thoughts or emotions there, however, for mostly Nils simply received, sorting and filing data of almost every kind without discussing it with himself.
But the evidence was increasingly unmistakable.
One winter evening the counselor took from a small chest a gray plastic box, closed a switch, and patiently waited. He didn't wait long. As a hair-like needle twitched on the dial, a voice in his mind commanded him.
His mind reviewed the event of Nils's arrival and what he had observed, the little he had been able to learn from Nils's mind, and what he had learned from the minds of others when they had thought about Nils. "And there is no question," he thought, "the barbarian is a psi, and I feel he is not here accidentally. I don't know any details, for I can read nothing specific myself. But you could force him, Master."
His thoughts paused, as if hesitating, and there was a sharp painful tug at the counselor's mind that made him wince and continue.
"And today, as I watched, I became aware that he knows I am here, and that he let me know purposely, realizing I would know it was on purpose. Of course, he could easily know of me from the king's mind. But he knows more about me than the king does; it may be he knows all that I am.
"And he as an undisturbed as a stone."
That winter at Pest was the coldest of memory, Nils was told. Old people, and even the middle-aged, complained that winters were longer and colder than when they were young. But even recent winters had had frequent days when temperatures rose above freezing, weather when the surface of the ground thawed to mud. This winter it remained like stone. The snow from the great October storm had never been much deeper at Pest than a man's knees, and little new snow had been added. Yet until late March the ground remained covered, except on strong south slopes and near the south sides of buildings.
The River Danube, which the Magyars called Duna, froze deeply, and boys and youths fastened skates to their feet for sport, while people of every age cut holes through the ice and fished for pike and sturgeon. Not until April did the ice soften enough that several fishermen fell through to be carried away beneath it by the current.
By that time Nils had taken opportunities to examine maps, but had made no plans. When the time came, he would have a plan. Meanwhile, he worked, ate, slept, and learned, finding life quite agreeable. Imre Rakosi had learned to speak the simple Anglic tongue quite creditably, while Nils, living with the Magyar tongue, had substantially mastered its agglutinative complexities. The two youths had become close friends.
At the beginning of April they had the first days of true spring that promise summer. On one such day both were free from duty, and they rode together along a muddy, rutted road above the Duna, watching the fishermen standing in the shallow water that flowed across the gray and spongy ice. But on a shirt-sleeve day in April they found little inspiration in the sight of a river still ice-bound. So they left the bank and turned their horses up the rubble-paved road to Old Pest.
Old Pest had been immensely larger than the present town. Around Old Pest lay the open plain, grazed in summer or planted with wheat. But Old Pest itself was an extensive forest, mainly of oak but with other broad-leaved trees, its openings overgrown with hazel brush. The rubble and broken pavement prevented cultivation, at the same time concentrating rainwater in the breaks so that trees could sprout and grow. Here and there parts of a building still stood above the trees. The rest had fallen to storms and the gradual deterioration of material. Over the centuries many building stones had been hauled away to be used in the growth of New Pest, and concrete had been crushed for remanufacturing. Even steel construction rods had been broken and hauled away, to be stacked in smithies for cleaning and reuse. And the paving stones of New Pest came from the rubble of the Old.
The present town had grown up several kilometers from the edge of the old city. Neither merchants, nobles, nor commoners cared to house near its ancient ghosts, nor to the cover it provided to bandits and other predators.
Imre had never been in Old Pest before. Bears, wolves and wild dogs actually were few there in these times, for herdsmen organized hunts, with hounds and scores of armed and mounted men, to hold down depredations. And bandits usually were only transient there, for soldiers of the king hunted them. But explorers occasionally disappeared and were not seen again or were found dead and sometimes mutilated.
Imre and Nils poked cautiously about in one building whose lower levels still stood, and wondered whether it could ever have housed men.
There were no stoves or fireplaces, or anything to take away smoke, or anything to see except debris. "I like it better outside than in here," Nils commented.
"You're right. Let's go back out. Anyway, there's only one building I really want to see. I've looked at it from a distance through the palace windows and the whole immense thing seems still to be standing. It may be farther than we have time to go, though, and maybe we wouldn't be able to find it in this wilderness anyway."
They mounted and went farther on among the trees. "Do you mean the building with the huge dome?" Nils asked.
"That's the one. It is said to be a church."
"And what is, or was, a church?" Nils wanted to know.
"Well," explained Imre, "in the olden times men believed in imaginary beings who were thought to be very powerful and therefore had to be given gifts and sung to, and in general the people had to debase themselves before them. Even the nobility; even kings. And great palaces called churches were built and dedicated to the chief of those beings, who was called Christianity."
"I'm surprised I never heard of him before," Nils said.
"It is said that belief in him died out before the Great Death. Perhaps in your land even the memory was lost, or perhaps it never existed there."
They were passing the base of a great hill of rubble upon which stood only scattered shrubs and scrubby trees, but numerous stalks of forbs lay broken, suggesting that in season it would be alive with wild flowers. Turning their horses, they rode toward its top, hoping to get a better directional fix from its elevation.