The clerk shrugged enigmatically. “It’s your funeral,” he said. “Here, I imagine this is your transport coming now.”
Baryon looked down the roughly cobbled street, but saw no sign of any vehicle approaching. There were the usual crew of loungers, women in heavy shawls going about their business, and three men leading horses. He started to say “where” and then realized that the three men, who were coming straight toward the gate, were leading
four
horses.
He swallowed hard. He had known in a general way that the Darkovans had small technology and used no motor transit. They used various pack and draft animals, indigenous relatives of the buffalo and the larger deer, and horses—probably descended from a strain imported from Nova Terra about a hundred years ago—for riding. It made sense. The Darkovan terrain was unsuited to roadbuilding on a large scale, the population didn’t care about it and in any case there were none of the massive mining and manufacturing operations which are necessary for surface transit. Barron, safely inside the Zone, had noticed all this and his reaction had been “So what?” He hadn’t really cared how the Darkovans lived; it had nothing to do with him. His world was spaceport dispatch: spaceships, cargo, passenger transit—Darkover was a major pivot on long-distance hypertravel because it was situated conveniently between the High Arm and Low Arm of the Galaxy—mapping ships, and the various tractors and surface machinery for servicing all of those. He was not prepared for the change from spaceship to pack animals.
The three men paused, letting go the reins of the horses, which were well-trained and stood quietly. The foremost of the three men, a sturdy young man in his twenties, said, “You are the Terran representative Daniel Firth Barron?” He had some trouble with the name.
“
Z’par servu.
” The polite Darkovan phrase,
at your service
, brought a faint agreeable smile from the young man as he replied in some formula Barron couldn’t understand and then shifted back to Trade City language, saying, “I am Colryn. This is Lerrys, and this, Gwynn. Are you ready? Can you leave at once? Where are your baggages?”
“I’m ready when you are.” Barron indicated the duffel bag, which held his few possessions, and the large but light case which held the equipment he must use. “The bag can be knocked around as much as you like; it’s only clothes. But be careful not to drop the crate; it’s breakable.”
“Gwynn, you see to that,” Colryn said. “We have pack animals waiting outside the city, but for the moment we can carry them with us. It isn’t easy to manage pack animals on the streets here, as narrow as they are.”
Barron realized that they were waiting for him to mount. He reminded himself that this assignment was all that stood between him and ruin, but that didn’t seem very important at the moment. He wanted, for the first time in his adult life, to run. He set his mouth hard and said very stiffly, “I should warn you, I’ve never been on a horse in my life.”
“I am sorry,” Colryn said. His politeness was almost excessive. “There is no other way to go where we are going.”
The one introduced as Lerrys swung Barron’s duffel bag up to his saddle. He said, “I’ll take this, you’ll have enough trouble with your reins, then.” His Terran was substantially better than Colryn’s, being virtually accentless. “You’ll soon pick up riding; I did. Colryn, why don’t you show him how to mount? And ride beside him until he gets over being nervous.”
Nervous!
Barron felt like snarling at the youngster that he had been facing strange worlds when this boy was playing with his toys, then he relaxed.
What the hell, I am nervous, the kid would have to be blind not to see it.
Before he realized how it had happened, he was in the saddle, his feet slipped through the high ornate stirrups, moving slowly down the street and away from the Terran Zone. He was too confused and too busy keeping his balance to give it a single backward look.
He had never been at close quarters with Darkovans before. At the restaurants and shops in Trade City, they had been dark impassive faces serving him and strangers at a safe distance to be ignored. Now he was among them for an indefinite period of time, with only the most casual of warnings, the dimmest of preparations.
This never happened in the Terran Empire! Damn it, you were never supposed to be assigned work outside your specialty; then if they actually sent you into the field on a strange planet, you were supposed to get all sorts of briefing and training!
At the moment it was taking all the concentration he could muster to stay on his horse.
It was the better part of an hour before he began to relax, to feel that a fall was less imminent, and to spare a few minutes to look at his three companions.
All three were younger than Barron, as well as he could judge. Colryn was tall, lanky yet delicately built, and his face was narrow and fine, with a shadow of brown curly beard. His voice was soft, but he seemed unusually self-possessed for so young a man, and he talked and laughed with animation as they rode. Lerrys was sturdy, with hair almost red enough for a Terran, and seemed hardly into his twenties. Gwynn, the third, was swart and tall, the oldest of the three; except for a nod and brief greeting, he had paid no attention to Barron and seemed a little aloof from the younger men.
All three wore loose heavy breeches, falling in flaps over high, carefully fitted boots, and laced tunic-like shirts in rich, dark colors. Gwynn and Colryn had thick, fur-lined riding cloaks, and Lerrys a short loose fur jacket with a hood. All three wore short gauntlets, knives in their belts and smaller knives in pockets at the top of their boots; Gwynn had a sword as well, although for riding it was swung across the crupper of his horse. They all had hair cut smoothly below their ears and a variety of amulets and jewelry. They looked fierce, bright and barbaric. Barron, aware of his own thoroughly civilized clothing, hair, grooming and manner, felt queerly frightened.
Damn it, I’m not ready for this sort of thing!
They rode at first through cobbled streets, between the crowded houses and markets of the Old Town; then along wider stone roads where the going was smoother, between high houses set back behind gardens and unfamiliar high towers. Finally the stone road ended to become trampled grass and the riders turned aside toward a long, low enclosure and through wooden and stone fences and gateways into a sort of compound of reddish, trampled earth, where several dozen unfamiliarly dressed men were doing various things: loading and unloading animals, saddling and grooming them, cooking over open fires or on braziers, washing and splashing in a wooden trough, and carrying buckets of feed and water to the beasts. It was very cold and very confusing, and Barron was glad, at last, to reach the lee of a rough stone wall, where he was permitted to slide from his horse and turn it over, at Colryn’s nod, to a roughly dressed man who came to lead it away.
He walked between Gwynn and Lerrys, Colryn remaining behind to see to the animals, under a shelter roofed and walled against the wind. Lerrys said, “You’re not used to riding; why don’t you rest while we get food ready? And haven’t you any riding clothes? I can bring your bag—it would be better to change into them now.”
Although Barron knew that the youngster was trying to be kind, he felt irritated at the continued harping on this point. “The clothes I have with me are just like this; I’m sorry.”
“In that case you’d better come with me,” Lerrys said, and led him out of the shelter again, through the opposite end of the long enclosure. Heads turned to follow them as they passed; someone shouted something and people laughed loudly. He heard repeated murmurs of
Terranan
, which didn’t need any interpreting. Lerrys turned and said firmly, “
Chaireth.
” That caused a momentary silence and then a brief flurry of quiet words and mutters. They all moved away with some deference as the young redhead motioned to them. Finally the two came out into a market or shop—mostly clay jars and coarse glassware, a multitude of loose garments lying over baskets and barrels. Lerrys said firmly, “You can’t possibly travel into the mountains in the outfit you’re wearing. I don’t mean to sound offensive, but it’s impossible.”
“I wasn’t given any orders—”
“Listen, my friend”—Lerrys used the Darkovan word
com’ii—
“You have no idea how cold it gets, traveling in the open, especially back in the hills. Your clothes may be warm”—he touched a fold of the light synthetic—“but only for conditions between walls. The Hellers are the very bones of the earth. Your feet will be sore, riding in those things, not to mention—”
Barron, now fiercely embarrassed, had to say flatly, “I can’t afford it.”
Lerrys drew a deep breath. “My foster father has ordered me to provide everything that is necessary for your well-being, Mr. Barron.” Barron was surprised at the manner of address—the Darkovans did not use honorifics or surnames—but then, Lerrys apparently spoke excellent Terran. He wondered if the young man were a professional interpreter. “Who is your foster father?”
“Valdir Alton of the Comyn Council,” Lerrys said briefly. Even Barron had heard of the Comyn—the hereditary caste of Darkovan rulers—and it silenced him. If the Comyn had anything to do with this and wanted him to wear Darkovan clothes, there was no use arguing.
After a brief period of spirited bargaining of which Barron—who knew considerable of the Darkovan language, more because he was quick and fluent at languages than because he had been interested—could follow very little, Lerrys said, “I hope these will meet with your approval. I knew you would not care to wear bright colors; I do not myself.” He handed Barron a pile of clothing, mostly in dark fabrics that looked like linen, with a heavy fur jacket like the one he himself was wearing. “It’s hard to manage a cloak, riding, unless you grew up wearing one.” There was also a pair of high boots.
“Better try the boots for fit,” he suggested.
Barron bent and slipped off his sandals. The clothing seller chuckled and said something Barron couldn’t follow about sandals. and Lerrys said fiercely, “The
chaireth
is Lord Alton’s guest!” The merchant gulped, muttered some phrases of apology and fell silent. The boots fitted as if they had been made for him, and though they felt strange along his ankles and calves, Barron had to admit they were comfortable. Lerrys picked up the sandals and stuck them in Barron’s pocket. “You could wear them indoors, I suppose.”
Barron would have answered, but before the words reached his lips a curious dizziness swept over him.
He was standing in a great, vaulted hall, lighted only by a few flickering torches. Below him he could hear the shouts of drunken men; and he could smell torches, roasting meat, and an odd acrid odor that confused him and made him feel sick. He grasped at a ring in the wall, found that it was not there; the wall was not there. He was back in the blowing wind and cloudy sunlight of the fenced compound, his pile of clothing fallen to the grass at his feet, and young Lerrys staring up at him, shaken and puzzled.
“Are you all right, Barron? You looked—a bit odd.”
Barron nodded, glad to conceal his face by stooping to gather up his clothing. He was relieved when Lerrys left him in the shelter and he could sink down on the rough floor and lean against the wall, shuddering.
That again!
Was he going mad? If it had been due to the stress of his job, now that he had been removed from the dispatch board it should have stopped. Yet, although brief, this time had been more vivid than the others. Shivering, he shut his eyes and tried not to think until Colryn, coming to the edge of the open wall of the shelter, called to him.
Two or three men in rough, dark clothing were moving around the fire; Colryn did not introduce them. Barron, in response to gestures, joined Gwynn and Lerrys at the trough where men were washing. It was growing dusky and the icy evening wind was coming up, but they all washed long and thoroughly. Barron was shivering uncontrollably and thinking with some longing of the Darkovan fur jacket, but he took his turn and washed face and hands more than he’d normally have done; he didn’t want them to think Terrans were dirty—and in any case riding had left him dirtier than pushing buttons and watching circuit relays. The water was bitterly cold, and he shook with the chill, his face bitten by the bitter wind.
They sat around the fire out of the wind, and after murmuring a brief formula, Gwynn began handing food around. Barron accepted the plate he was given; which held some sweet boiled grain covered with a splash of acrid sauce, a large lump of meat and a small bowl of thick bittersweet stuff vaguely like chocolate. It was all good, although it was hard to manage the tough meat which the others sliced into paper-thin slices with the knives in their belts; it had been salted and dried in some manner and was almost like leather. Barron pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lighted one, drawing the smoke gratefully into his mouth; it tasted ambrosial.
Gwynn scowled at him and said in an undertone to Colryn, “First the sandals and now this—” looking with direct rudeness at Barron, he asked a question of which Barron could make out only the unfamiliar word
embredin
. Lerrys raised his head from his plate, saw Barron’s cigarette and shook his head slightly, then said “
Chaireth
” again, rather deprecatingly, to Gwynn and got up to drop down beside Barron.
“I wouldn’t smoke here if I were you,” he said. “I know it is your custom, but it is offensive among the men of the Domains.”
“What was he saying?”
Lerrys flushed. “He was asking, to put it in the simplest possible terms, if you were an—an effeminate. It was partly those damned sandals of yours, and partly—well, as I say, men do not smoke here. It is reserved for women.”
With an irritable gesture Barron ground out his cigarette. This was going to be worse than he thought. “What’s that word you used—
chaireth
?”