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  “Come, Azaltar, Princessa. We must hold council,” said the king after a time, and led them toward his dining chamber.

  Karlenus saluted Straker with his axe and slipped off, no doubt to return to the sawmill. “Give that guy some weapons drill and he’ll be a monster,” said Straker to Roslyn. “Your militia would be more effective with better training and some basic armor.”

  “Armor is costly, and every day they train is a day they don’t work,” she replied. “Perhaps when the storehouses are full and the people are flush with coin, we can afford such luxuries.”

  “Point taken.” Straker’s mind turned to what he’d read of Old Earth’s medieval farming and industry. Maybe he could remember something to increase their yields. Crop rotation? Fertilizer? Contour plowing? Irrigation? If only he could recall all that boring, non-military school stuff. Now he wished he had a brainiac like Zaxby or Murdock along, or even a comlinked database and a handtab.

  Or perhaps he did… Gorben seemed like the closest thing to a scientist these people had. Maybe all Straker needed to do was to brainstorm ideas with him and let the adviser spread the improvements.

  Roslyn steered Straker to her dead brother’s quarters again. “Clean yourself up and come to the royal chambers in half an hour. We will eat, drink, and take counsel.”

  “How the hell do you people tell time here?” he asked.

  “In the day, by the sun.” She pointed at a sundial affixed to the inside of the open window embrasure. “At night, by the clock-chimes.” She pointed out a different window, one that faced inward toward the castle courtyard. There he could see a tower with a clock set in it, still visible in the setting sun. The face showed twelve divisions, an hour and a minute hand, exactly as had evolved on Old Earth and was still in use today on most planets—even if the hours, minutes and seconds weren’t standard from place to place.

  Straker wondered whether Terra Nova had been selected with a twenty-four hour rotation, or would this clock’s hours match a true digital chrono? It hardly mattered, except to show the Opters’ dedication to reproducing human environments. “All right. See you then.”

  Roslyn left and Straker cleaned up. A servant girl brought a basin of hot water and tried to help him wash, but he sent her away and stripped, giving himself the best towel-bath he could. If these people didn’t have immersion tubs, he resolved to introduce them. Hell, he was the Azaltar! Might as well enjoy a few perks.

  With clean clothes on, he had a servant guide him to the meeting. A stein of surprisingly good, cool beer from a keg refreshed him, and he used it to wash down the simple food set out on the sideboard—cold roast meat and fowl, vegetables and fruit, bread and yesterday’s cake. Of course, the day’s battle precluded most cooking and feasting. The only hot thing on the menu was a cauldron of thick stew, the same as Straker had seen served to soldiers at their posts.

  When he’d wolfed down two plates full with the others—Roslyn, Gorben, Drake, the king and a dozen other nobles and important people—Fillior rapped on the table with the hilt of his eating-knife. “We are grateful to all who preserved us today, but the Bortoks almost prevailed. Half our soldiers lie wounded in the great hall. If not for the intervention of the Azaltar, my daughter and Baron Drake, who cleared the battlements above the breach, all would have been lost.”

  “Yes, sire,” said Drake. “The Azaltar proved quite… energetic, and his heroic stand was surprisingly well-timed.”

  Straker noticed that weird phrasing again, as if Drake was subtly calling his actions into question. He was about to retort, when Roslyn leaned over to murmur in Straker’s ear. “You threaten his martial primacy, my love. No other man has ever killed so many Bortoks, or shown such prowess.”

  “Yeah, I figured it was something like that. And don’t call me ‘my love.’”

  Roslyn merely smiled, and hummed faintly.

  Great. Just great. Straker was very glad Carla was light-years away.

  Gorben said sternly, “The Azaltar Straker has come to us on our day of need, just as in ancient times came the Azaltar Jiakob. The scriptures foretold it: he shall come as a champion, and then depart like the wind.”

  Drake drummed his fingers on the table. His voice seemed to hold a slight sneer. “While I’m not as learned as the wise Gorben, I have also read the scriptures. They say the Azaltar Jiakob became contentious and had to be banished after a year and a day, and the king was greatly relieved when he departed, for the people had grown to love the Azaltar above their rightful sovereign. Is this to be our lot?”

  Roslyn jumped to her feet. “Straker is here for mere days and already you spread your fears?”

  “I fear only for the king… and for you, Sessa, and the dynasty of Calaria. We have no prince, no heir, and you are unmated.”

  “I’ve postponed your offer, you mean,” Roslyn said stiffly. “Now you fear I will take Straker, and he and his sons will inherit the crown instead of you.”

  “Hey, hey, hey,” Straker said, also rising to his feet. “I’m already married. Mated, that is. Princessa Roslyn is beautiful and wise and any man would be lucky to have her, but there’s only one woman for me, and her name is Carla Engels. Believe me when I tell you, I don’t want to stick around here and mess with your politics. I rescued Roslyn because she was in trouble. Any decent man would’ve done the same, and I’m helping your people for the same reason—because you’re in trouble, and you’re defending yourselves. When the Bortoks are gone, I intend to leave, to climb over the great wall again and return to my own people. In the meantime, I’ll teach everything I know, and expect nothing in return except a little help getting home.” He brushed his hands together and spread them. “That’ll be it. Done and over with. You have my word.”

  Drake’s eyes narrowed and Roslyn seemed to be holding her tongue, but the rest, including Gorben and the king, nodded in satisfaction. “Well spoken,” Fillior said. “We must put aside all quarrels until the Bortoks have been driven from our lands. Baron Drake, do you not agree?”

  “Of course, Majesty, of course.”

  Straker sat, hoping that he’d settled the matter.

  “Bring the chart,” the king said.

  Two scribes brought a large parchment map and laid it on the cleared table. Everyone stood to see it better. It depicted High Tollen castle and the surrounding lands. Another man placed small flat pieces of painted wood at various places, quickly and certainly. In moments, the map now resembled a game board, with the positions of Bortoks and Calaria clearly shown.

  Other servants lit candelabras for light against the falling night, and then guards cleared the room of unneeded people.

  The royal council discussed the battle, the positions of troops and supplies and other military matters for several hours. Drake’s mood seemed to have improved with Straker’s assurances that he wasn’t angling for Roslyn’s hand in marriage. Straker made sure to couch suggestions in the most deferential terms he could, even if it made him grind his teeth to do so.

  After all, what he said was true; he wasn’t planning on being here any longer than necessary. “Any longer than necessary” meant sending the Bortoks home with their tails between their legs, and then claiming the goodwill of the Calaria to help him escape this diz.

  When the meeting came to a close, Straker brushed off Roslyn’s attempt to walk him arm-in-arm back to his room. “Look, sorry, I just told everyone I don’t want you.”

  “But you do want me,” she said, sloe-eyed. “I know the signs.”

  “If there are any signs, they’re purely physical. When I give my word, I keep it—and that’s what wedding vows mean. Don’t you people take vows, make promises?”

  “Of course—for a year and a day, and then we renew them again—or choose not to. So you see, you could stay here a year and a day, and then leave. I would be the woman of the Azaltar first, and then I could be Drake’s woman after that. It would go far toward me becoming Ka-ween, don’t you think?”

  “Queen, yes�
�� but do you think Drake’s gonna put up with that? I bet he’s thinking about becoming king himself.”

  “If my father bestows the title on me, and has the blessing of Gorben and the magic men and the other nobility, Drake will.”

  Straker snorted with amused disbelief. “You’re an ambitious woman, Roslyn. And here I thought you were a naïve babe in the woods.”

  “You found me in the woods, Straker—and you put this ambition in my thoughts, did you not?”

  “I guess I did. But I’m not sticking around for a year and a day. You’ll have to play your political games without me.”

  “As you wish, Derek Straker.” She lowered her eyes and smiled.

  “Damn—and I thought these people were primitive,” he muttered to himself as he strode back to his room. “Reminds me of… of Old Earth and all the medieval intrigue. Machiavelli, Cardinal Richelieu, those guys.”

  Straker rounded a corner. As he did so, pain blossomed in his side, so severe his legs went rubbery and he stumbled to the ground.

  This may have saved his life. A sword stroke passed above his head as he fell. He grabbed the leg of a small wooden table and threw it at his attacker.

  Attackers. The knife in his kidney had been administered by one masked man, and the other was already striking for him again with the sword. Unfortunately he’d thrown the table at the wrong one.

  “Guards!” he croaked. “Murder! Assassins!” He rolled violently to one side, but the swordsman didn’t miss—by much. The blade slashed along his upraised arm, and then came back around for another blow.

  Despite nausea and weakness, Straker kicked the man’s legs out from under him. If he’d had his full strength he’d have snapped the man’s knee. He clamped his unwounded hand on his attacker’s wrist and twisted.

  The man’s bones broke. He screamed.

  Then there came a rush of armed men, and Roslyn. They quickly secured the two assassins while Roslyn dropped to Straker’s side. “Call the surgeon!” she yelled.

  “Take these two to the dungeon,” Straker heard Drake say. “I will soon know who their master is.”

  The surgeon bound his wounds and had him carried gently to his bed, with Roslyn hovering. The slash along his arm didn’t concern him much, but his punctured kidney throbbed and he felt sicker than ever in his life.

  “The blade was poisoned, My Lord Azaltar,” the surgeon told him. “I know its smell. You must drink this to counter its effects.” He held a cup to Straker’s lips.

  “You trust this guy?” Straker asked Roslyn, grasping the cup himself.

  “He has been the royal surgeon all his life, as was his father before him, so yes, I do,” said Roslyn.

  Straker drank. It tasted awful, which seemed to be a prerequisite of all medicines.

  “It will make you drowsy, which is all to the good,” said the doctor. “Were you not the Azaltar and possessed of supernatural strength, you would be dead now. Rest and heal.” He turned to Roslyn. “Call for me if he worsens.”

  “I will.” She let the man out the door. Straker saw guards in the hall, and when Roslyn returned, she locked and barred the window. “You are safe now.”

  “I thought I was safe before.”

  Roslyn blushed with shame. “As did I. We should have no need of guards in our own house.”

  “Guess you’re not so Machiavellian as I thought.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Never mind.” Straker laid his head back on the pillow, feeling a heaviness steal over him.

  Roslyn poured a drink, this time of spiced wine that tasted much better than the medicine, and shared it with him, putting it to his lips.

  When he’d drunk his fill, he said, “You think Drake was behind it?”

  “Drake? No.”

  “He doesn’t like me much.”

  “He’s no murderer. If he wanted you dead, he would challenge you and kill you.”

  “Or I’d kill him.”

  Roslyn gave him a skeptical look. That irked Straker. Other than his Kung Jiu instructors, he’d never run into anyone that could take him in a fair fight, and he found he didn’t like it much. But, obviously he was bound to run across someone, sometime, who could.

  Straker’s thoughts drifted, and he felt Roslyn slip into bed with him. He noticed the warmth of her skin, her thighs and her breasts against him, and realized she was naked. A surge of adrenaline fought with the drugs and the wine as she ran her hands along his chest.

  “Don’t—” he mumbled, unable to fend her off. He felt himself respond to her touch. “What did you…”

  “I put herbs of potency and desire in the wine,” she said as she threw off the blankets and straddled him. “If I cannot have your heart, and your head refuses me, then I shall at least have your body and your seed, Derek Straker, my Azaltar.”

  “No, hold on…”

  “Worry not, my love. You will remember nothing of this in the morning.”

  Whether it was the drug, Roslyn’s allure, or his own treasonous body, he found himself powerless to resist.

  Chapter 19

  Straker in Calaria

  When Straker awoke to morning’s light streaming in the still-barred window of his castle room, he tried to recall what happened the night before. He remembered the attack, and the doctor who patched him up. And Roslyn… what had she said? Did she…?

  Straker threw off the blankets and looked down at himself, but all he saw were bandages, and no evidence of… of what? He wasn’t even sure. It must have been a dream. No way he would have been able to perform even if he wanted to—not with that sleepy-drug and all these injuries.

  He sat up carefully and found it wasn’t as bad as he’d feared. His biotech was serving him well. Swinging his legs to the floor, he stood and tottered to the privy, and then he rang the bell on a cord. Servants rushed in and helped him don loose clothing, and brought him food and drink.

  Soon after, Gorben entered. “I thank the Holy One you survived,” he said.

  “Holy One? I thought you weren’t superstitious—you know, about gods and demons and stuff like that.”

  Gorben stared at Straker in astonishment. “I’m not. The magic men and their followers believe in demons and spells and suchlike, but not those of the True Faith. The Holy One created the land and the firmament and set all things in motion, but according to the scriptures he seldom meddles in the affairs of men. Yet, shall I not praise him for good fortune?” Gorben shrugged. “Only the most narrow-minded does not at least give thanks. Have you never addressed your own gods, even on the battlefield?”

  “Maybe I have,” Straker mused, thinking about placing Orset in the ground and speaking the regimental chaplain’s funereal words. “Pascal’s Wager.”

  “What is that?”

  “It means, if there is a, um, ‘Holy One,’ one that’s benevolent, why not stay on his good side? And if not? No harm, no foul.”

  “Exactly.” Gorben opened the window. “But the magic men do not believe this way. They have been spreading lies that you are a demon—and now I fear you have proven them right. The poison on the blade was enough to kill five strong men, yet you live.”

  “You think they’re behind it—these magic men?”

  “It is likely, but we will not soon know. The assassins died by their own poison before they could talk.”

  “That’s convenient. Wasn’t Drake in charge of the interrogation?”

  “You think he silenced them?”

  “I think he’s the prime suspect in this whole thing.”

  “This I doubt. Drake is far too prudent to risk such a rash course.” Gorben paced, staring at the floor and tapping his staff in thought. “I do not wish to seem ungrateful, Azaltar, but perhaps you should be on your way as soon as you are well.”

  “Hey, that sounds great. You know a way over the wall to Glasgow? I mean, Rennerog?”

  “I know a way past the wall, but I know not where it goes, to Rennerog or some other land. It is far from wh
ere Roslyn found you, a river that plunges beneath the barrier.”

  “Sounds chancy. What about just climbing over?”

  Gorben glanced at the closed door and lowered his voice. “In my heart of hearts, I do not believe Roslyn can climb the wall, though I could not say so publicly. And is not the descent on the other side just as dangerous? Did you not say that those of Glasgow seek to capture you?”

  “You’re right,” said Straker. “Better to take a chance on the river, I guess. At least, I’ll take a look.”

  “Excellent. I will leave you to your rest.”

  “Hey, Gorben.”

  “Yes, Azaltar?”

  “What does that mean, anyway? Azaltar?”

  “On the Old Tongue it means…” Gorben searched his memory. “Freedom-bringer.”

  Straker choked on his wine. “Liberator?”

  “That is a fair translation.”

  “Maybe there’s something to your prophecies after all.”

  “Of course there is. The key to prophecy is to always leave the interpretations to the latest possible moment. It matters not which is chicken, and which is egg.” Gorben winked. “You were the one who came to help us. Thus, you are the Azaltar.”

  “Call me Derek, will you? Derek Straker. That’s my name.”

  “All right, Derek Straker. Alas, I have no other name than Gorben.”

  “No problem. Hey, what I wanted to say was, could you keep Roslyn away from me?”

  Gorben raised an eyebrow. “An unusual request.”

  “Look, she’s just getting a little too friendly. I already have a woman.”

  “The woman loves the man’s honor, but honors only the man’s love.”

  Straker nodded. “Yeah, she said that, but I can’t quite puzzle out what it means.”

  “It means, Derek Straker, that when it comes to love, women have indeed no honor at all.”

  “Maybe here in Calaria.”

  “It’s the only place I know. Are the women different in your land?”