Schloss Graustein was not the worst place in the cosmos to be a prisoner. Though gaunt and drafty on its high ridge, it was surrounded by forests where the hunting was excellent. The food was heavy but edible, and the local beer superb. Landholder Graustein did his best to make the distinguished, if compulsory, guest feel at home. During long conversations and occasional guided tours of the planet, Falkayn spotted interesting commercial opportunities, once the region had been pacified.
Unless—He didn't want to contemplate the alternative. And after some weeks, time began to hang as leaden as the knackwurst.
Thus Falkayn was quite happy when a servant knocked at the door of his suite and announced a visitor. But then she stepped through. He had never thought she would be an unwelcome sight.
"Jutta," he whispered.
She closed the door behind her and regarded him for a still moment. Dark wood and granite panels framed her where she stood vivid under the fluorolight. She was in mufti, and if he had thought her beautiful when uniformed, he must now multiply by an astronomical factor. "So it is indeed you," she said.
"P-p-please sit down," he managed. She remained standing. Her features were stony, her voice flat.
"Those idiots took for granted you were what you claimed, a merchant who simply chanced to pass by and saw too much. They never interrogated you in depth, never notified the fleet command. I only heard of you yesterday, in conversation with Landholder von Lichtenberg, after I came home on leave. The description—" Words trailed off.
Falkayn rallied his courage. "A stratagem of war, my dear," he said gently. "Not a war that my side began, either."
"What have you done?"
He told his pulse to decelerate, took out his pipe, and made a production of loading and kindling it. "You can squirt me full of babble juice, so I might as well Tell All," he smiled. "I guessed the truth and went for a look to make certain."
"That funny little being who left about the same time as you did . . . he knew?"
Falkayn nodded. "He's reported to HQ long ago. If the League is half as realistic as I think, a battle fleet you can't hope to resist is on its way right now."
She clenched one hand over another. Tears stood in her eyes. "What follows?"
"They should head straight here. I expect them any day. You've nothing in the Beta System except a few patrollers; the rest of your navy is spread over a dozen stars, right? The League doesn't want to bombard planets, but in this case—" She uttered anguish. He went quickly to her, took both those hands, and said, "No, no. Realpolitik, Remember? The object of war is not to destroy the enemy but to impose your will on him. Why should we kill people that we might sell things to? We'll simply take the Beta System prisoner and then bargain about its release.
"I don't make policy, but I can predict what'll happen. The League will demand you disband your armed forces, down to a normal defense level. And, naturally, we'll want to keep our trade concessions. But that's all. Now that some Kraoka have starships, they can go ahead and unify, as long as they do it peacefully. We'd hoped to sell them a cargo and passenger fleet, at a huge markup, but that hope isn't worth fighting for—you do have bargaining power yourselves, in your own capabilities for making trouble, you know. Neuheim can keep any social order it wants. Why not? If you try to maintain this wretched autarchy, you'll be depriving yourselves of so much that inside of ten years your people will throw out the Landholders and yell for us."
He chucked her under the chin. "I understand," he said. "It's tough when a dream dies. But why should you, your whole life, carry your father's grudges?"
She surrendered to tears. He consoled her, and a private hope began to grow in him.
Not that he was in the market for a wife. Judas! At his age? However—
Afterward they found themselves on the balcony. Night had fallen, the auroral night where vast banners shook red and green across the sky, dimming the stars, and the mountain swooped down to a forest which breathed strange sweet odors back upward. Wineglasses were in their hands, and she stood close to him.
"You can report who I am," he said, "and cause me to have an unpleasant time, maybe even be shot." Pale in the shuddering light, her face lost its look of happiness and he heard the breath suck between her teeth. "Your duty, according to the articles of war," he continued. "And it won't make one bit of difference, it'll be too late—except that the League protects its own and will take a stiff price for me."
"What choice have I?" she pleaded.
He flashed a well-rehearsed grin. "Why, to keep your lovely mouth shut, tell everybody you were mistaken and Sebastian Tombs has nothing to do with that Falkayn character. When peace comes—well, you're quite influential on this planet. You could do a lot to help your people adjust."
"And become merchants?" she said, in a dying flare of scorn.
"I remarked once," he said, "that we aren't really so ignoble. We're after a profit, yes. But even a knight must eat, and our bread doesn't come from slaves or serfs or anyone who had to be killed. Look beyond those lights. They're fine, sure, but how about the stars on the other side?"
She caught his arm. He murmured, as best he could in Latin, "Thy merchants chase the morning down the sea . . ." and when she turned questioning to him he added, low in the dusk,
"Their topmasts gilt by sunset, though their sails be whipped to rags,
Who raced the wind around the world go reeling home again,
With ivory, apes, and peacocks loaded, memories and brags,
To sell for this high profit: knowing fully they are Men!"
"Oh-h-h," he heard.
And to think he'd resented his schoolmasters, when he was a kid on Hermes, making him read Flecker and Sanders in the original.
"I will not tell anyone," she said.
And: "May I stay here for a while?"
Falkayn was downright regretful a week later, when the League fleet arrived to rescue him.