The 1966 Nebula Award-winning novelette. Do not begin reading it if you are likely to be interrupted.
"He called and commanded
me
– Therefore, I knew him;
But later
on, failed me; and
– Therefore, I slew him!"
"Songs of the Shield Bearer"
The sun could not fail in rising over the Kentucky hills, nor could Kyle
Arnam in waking. There would be eleven hours and forty minutes of daylight.
Kyle rose, dressed, and went out to saddle the gray gelding and the white
stallion. He rode the stallion until the first fury was out of the arched and
snowy neck; and then led both horses around to tether them outside the kitchen
door. Then he went in to breakfast.
The message that had come a week before was beside his
plate of bacon and eggs. Teena, his wife, was standing at the breadboard with
her back to him. He sat down and began eating, rereading the letter as he ate.
". . . The Prince will be traveling incognito
under one of his family titles, as Count Sirii North; and should not be
addressed as 'Majesty.' You will call him 'Lord'
. . ."
"Why does it have to be you?" Teena asked.
He looked up and saw how she stood with her back to
him.
"Teena –" he said, sadly.
"Why?"
"My ancestors were bodyguards to his – back in
the wars of conquest against the aliens. I've told you that," he said.
"My forefathers saved the lives of his, many times when there was no
warning – a Rak spaceship would suddenly appear out of nowhere to lock on, even
to a flagship. And even an Emperor found himself fighting for his life, hand to
hand."
"The aliens are all dead now, and the Emperor's
got a hundred other worlds! Why can't his son take his Grand Tour on them? Why
does he have to come here to Earth – and you?"
"There's only one Earth."
"And only one you, I suppose?"
He sighed internally and gave up. He had been raised
by his father and his uncle after his mother died, and in an argument with
Teena he always felt helpless. He got up from the table and went to her,
putting his hands on her and gently trying to turn her about. But she resisted.
He sighed inside himself again and turned away to the
weapons cabinet. He took out a loaded slug pistol, fitted it into the stubby
holster it matched, and clipped the holster to his belt at the left of the
buckle, where the hang of his leather jacket would hide it. Then he selected a
dark-handled knife with a six-inch blade and bent over to slip it into the
sheath inside his boot top. He dropped the cuff of his trouser leg back over
the boot top and stood up.
"He's got no right to be here," said Teena
fiercely to the breadboard. "Tourists are supposed to be kept to the museum
areas and the tourist lodges."
"He's not a tourist. You know that," answered Kyle, patiently.
"He's the Emperor's oldest son and his great-grandmother was from Earth.
His wife will be, too. Every fourth genera- tion the Imperial line has to marry
back into Earth stock. That's the law – still." He put on his leather
jacket, sealing it closed only at the bottom to hide the slug-gun holster, half
turned to the door – then paused.
"Teena?" he asked.
She did not answer.
"Teena!" he repeated. He stepped to her, put
his hands on her shoulders and tried to turn her to face him. Again, she
resisted, but this time he was having none of it.
He was not a big man, being of middle height,
round-faced, with sloping and unremarka- ble-looking, if thick, shoulders. But
his strength was not ordinary. He could bring the white stallion to its knees
with one fist wound in its mane – and no other man had ever been able to do
that. He turned her easily to look at him.
"Now, listen to me –" he began. But, before he could finish,
all the stiffness went out of her and she clung to him, trembling.
"He'll get you into trouble – I know he
will!" she choked, muffledly into his chest. "Kyle, don't go! There's
no law making you go!"
He stroked the soft hair of her head, his throat stiff
and dry. There was nothing he could say to her. What she was asking was
impossible. Ever since the sun had first risen on men and women together, wives
had clung to their husbands at times like this, begging for what could not be.
And always the men had held them, as Kyle was holding her now – as if
understanding could somehow be pressed from one body into the other – and
saying nothing, because there was nothing that could be said.
So, Kyle held her for a few moments longer, and then
reached behind him to unlock her intertwined fingers at his back, and loosen
her arms around him. Then, he went. Looking back through the kitchen window as
he rode off on the stallion, leading the gray horse, he saw her standing just
where he had left her. Not even crying, but standing with her arms hanging
down, her head down, not moving.
He rode away through the forest of the Kentucky
hillside. It took him more than two hours to reach the lodge. As he rode down
the valleyside toward it, he saw a tall, bearded man, wearing the robes they
wore on some of the Younger Worlds, standing at the gateway to the interior
courtyard of the rustic, wooded lodge.
When he got close, he saw that the beard was graying
and the man was biting his lips. Above a straight, thin nose, the eyes were
bloodshot and circled beneath as if from worry or lack of sleep.
"He's in the courtyard," said the
gray-bearded man as Kyle rode up. "I'm Montlaven, his tutor. He's ready to
go." The darkened eyes looked almost pleadingly up at Kyle.
"Stand clear of the stallion's head," said
Kyle. "And take me in to him."
"Not that horse, for him –" said Montlaven, looking
distrustfully at the stallion, as he bac- ked away.
"No," said Kyle. "He'll ride the
gelding."
"He'll want the white."
"He can't ride the white," said Kyle.
"Even if I let him, he couldn't ride this stallion. I'm the only one who
can ride him. Take me in."
The tutor turned and led the way into the grassy
courtyard, surrounding a swimming pool and looked down upon, on three sides, by
the windows of the lodge. In a lounging chair by the pool sat a tall young man
in his late teens, with a mane of blond hair, a pair of stuffed saddlebags on
the grass beside him. He stood up as Kyle and the tutor came toward him.
"Majesty," said the tutor, as they stopped,
"this is Kyle Arnam, your bodyguard for the three days here."
"Good morning, Bodyguard . . . Kyle, I
mean." The Prince smiled mischievously. "Light, then. And I'll
mount."
"You ride the gelding, Lord," said Kyle.
The Prince stared at him, tilted back his handsome
head and laughed.
"I can ride, man!" he said. "I ride
well."
"Not this horse, Lord," said Kyle,
dispassionately. "No one rides this horse, but me."
The eyes flashed wide, the laugh faded – then
returned.
"What can I do?" The wide shoulders
shrugged. "I give in – always I give in. Well, almost always." He
grinned up at Kyle, his lips thinned, but frank. "All right."
He turned to the gelding – and with a sudden leap was
in the saddle. The gelding snorted and plunged at the shock; then steadied as
the young man's long fingers tightened expertly on the reins and the fingers of
the other hand patted a gray neck. The Prince raised his eyebrows, looking over
at Kyle, but Kyle sat stolidly.
"I take it you're armed good Kyle?" the Prince
said slyly. "You'll protect me against the natives if they run wild?"
"Your life is in my hands, Lord," said Kyle.
He unsealed the leather jacket at the bottom and let it fall open to show the
slug pistol in its holster for a moment. Then he resealed the jacket again at
the bottom.
"Will –" The tutor put his hand on the young
man's knee. "Don't be reckless, boy. This is Earth and the people here
don't have rank and custom like we do. Think before you –"
"Oh, cut it out, Monty!" snapped the Prince.
"I'll be just as incognito, just as humble, as archaic and independent as
the rest of them. You think I've no memory! Anyway, it's only for three days or
so until my Imperial father joins me. Now, let me go!"
He jerked away, turned to lean forward in the saddle,
and abruptly put the gelding into a bolt for the gate. He disappeared through
it, and Kyle drew hard on the stallion's reins as the big white horse danced
and tried to follow.
"Give me his saddlebags," said Kyle.
The tutor bent and passed them up. Kyle made them fast
on top of his own, across the stallion's withers. Looking down, he saw there
were tears in the bearded man's eyes.
"He's a fine boy. You'll see. You'll know he
is!" Montlaven's face, upturned, was mutely pleading.
"I know he comes from a fine family," said
Kyle, slowly. "I'll do my best for him." And he rode off out of the
gateway after the gelding.
When he came out of the gate, the Prince was nowhere
in sight. But it was simple enough for Kyle to follow, by dinted brown earth
and crushed grass, the marks of the gelding's path. This brought him at last
through some pines to a grassy open slope where the Prince sat looking skyward
through a single-lens box.
When Kyle came up, the Prince lowered the instrument
and, without a word, passed it over. Kyle put it to his eye and looked skyward.
There was the whir of the tracking unit and one of Earth's three orbiting power
stations swam into the field of vision of the lens.
"Give it back," said the Prince.
"I couldn't get a look at it earlier," went
on the young man as Kyle handed the lens to him. "And I wanted to. It's a
rather expensive present, you know – it and the other two like it – from our
Imperial treasury. Just to keep your planet from drifting into another ice age.
And what do we get for it?"
"Earth, Lord," answered Kyle. "As it
was before men went out to the stars."
"Oh, the museum areas could be maintained with one station and a
half-million careta- kers," said the Prince. "It's the other two
stations and you billion or so free-loaders I'm talking about. I'll have to
look into it when I'm Emperor. Shall we ride?"
"If you wish. Lord." Kyle picked up the reins of the stallion
and the two horses with their riders moved off across the slope.
". . . And one more thing," said the Prince,
as they entered the farther belt of pine trees. "I don't want you to be
misled – I'm really very fond of old Monty, back there. It's just that I wasn't
really planning to come here at all – Look at me, Bodyguard! "
Kyle turned to see the blue eyes that ran in the
Imperial family blazing at him. Then, unexpectedly, they softened. The Prince
laughed.
"You don't scare easily, do you, Bodyguard . . .
Kyle, I mean?" he said. "I think I like you after all. But look at me
when I talk."
"Yes, Lord."
"That's my good Kyle. Now, I was explaining to
you that I'd never actually planned to come here on my Grand Tour at all. I
didn't see any point in visiting this dusty old museum world of yours with
people still trying to live like they lived in the Dark Ages. But – my Imperial
father talked me into it."
"Your father, Lord?" asked Kyle.
"Yes, he bribed me, you might say," said the
Prince thoughtfully. "He was supposed to meet me here for these three
days. Now, he's messaged there's been a slight delay – but that doesn't matter.
The point is, he belongs to the school of old men who still think your Earth is
something precious and vital. Now, I happen to like and admire my father, Kyle.
You approve of that?"
"Yes, Lord."
"I thought you would. Yes, he's the one man in
the human race I look up to. And to please him, I'm making this Earth trip. And
to please him – only to please him, Kyle – I'm going to be an easy
Prince for you to conduct around to your natural wonders and watering spots and
whatever. Now, you understand me – and how this trip is going to go. Don't
you?" He stared at Kyle.
"I understand," said Kyle.
"That's fine," said the Prince, smiling once
more. "So now you can start telling me all about these trees and birds and
animals so that I can memorize their names and please my father when he shows
up. What are those little birds I've been seeing under the trees – brown on top
and whitish undereath? Like that one – there!"
"That's a Veery, Lord," said Kyle. "A
bird of the deep woods and silent places. Listen –" He reached out a hand
to the gelding's bridle and brought both horses to a halt. In the sudden
silence, off to their right they could hear a silverbird-voice, rising and
falling, in a descending series of crescendos and diminuendos, that softened at
last into silence. For a moment after the song was ended the Prince sat staring
at Kyle, then seemed to shake himself back to life.
"Interesting," he said. He lifted the reins
Kyle had let go and the horses moved forward again. "Tell me more."
For more than three hours, as the sun rose toward
noon, they rode through the wooded hills, with Kyle identifying bird and
animal, insect, tree and rock. And for three hours the Prince listened – his
attention flashing and momentary, but intense. But when the sun was overhead
that intensity flagged.
"That's enough," he said. "Aren't we
going to stop for lunch? Kyle, aren't there any towns around here?"
"Yes, Lord," said Kyle. "We've passed
several."
"Several?" The Prince stared at him. "Why
haven't we come into one before now? Where are you taking me?"
"Nowhere, Lord," said Kyle. "You lead the way. I only
follow."
"I?" said the Prince. For the first time he
seemed to become aware that he had been keeping the gelding's head always in
advance of the stallion. "Of course. But now it's time to eat."
"Yes, Lord," said Kyle. "This
way."
He turned the stallion's head down the slope of the
hill they were crossing and the Prince turned the gelding after him.
"And now listen," said the Prince, as he caught up. "Tell
me I've got it all right." And to Kyle's astonishment, he began to repeat,
almost word for word, everything that Kyle had said. "Is it all there?
Everything you told me?"
"Perfectly, Lord," said Kyle. The Prince looked slyly at him.
"Could you do that, Kyle?"
"Yes," said Kyle. "But these are things
I've known all my life."
"You see?" The Prince smiled. "That's the difference between us, good Kyle. You spend your life learning something – I spend a few hours and I know as much about it as you do."
"Not as much, Lord," said Kyle, slowly.
The Prince blinked at him, then jerked his hand
dismissingly, and half-angrily, as if he were throwing something aside.
"What little else there is probably doesn't
count," he said.
They rode down the slope and through a winding valley
and came out at a small village. As they rode clear of the surrounding trees a
sound of music came to their ears.
"What's that?" The Prince stood up in his
stirrups. "Why, there's dancing going on, over there."
"A beer garden, Lord. And it's Saturday – a
holiday here."
"Good. We'll go there to eat."
They rode around to the beer garden and found tables
back away from the dance floor. A pretty, young waitress came and they ordered,
the Prince smiling sunnily at her until she smiled back – then hurried off as
if in mild confusion. The Prince ate hungrily when the food came and drank a
stein and a half of brown beer, while Kyle ate more lightly and drank coffee.
"That's better," said the Prince, sitting
back at last. "I had an appetite . . . Look there, Kyle! Look, there are
five, six . . . seven drifter platforms parked over there. Then you don't all
ride horses?"
"No," said Kyle. "It's as each man
wishes."
"But if you have drifter platforms, why not other
civilized things?"
"Some things fit, some don't, Lord,"
answered Kyle. The Prince laughed.
"You mean you try to make civilization fit this
old-fashioned life of yours, here?" he said. "Isn't that the wrong
way around –" He broke off. "What's that they're playing now? I like
that. I'll bet I could do that dance." He stood up. "In fact, I think
I will."
He paused, looking down at Kyle.
"Aren't you going to warn me against it?" he asked.
"No, Lord," said Kyle. "What you do is
your own affair."
The young man turned away abruptly. The waitress who
had served them was passing, only a few tables away. The Prince went after her
and caught up with her by the dance floor railing. Kyle could see the girl
protesting – but the Prince hung over her, looking down from his tall height,
smiling. Shortly, she had taken off her apron and was out on the dance floor
with him, showing him the steps of the dance. It was a polka.
The Prince learned with fantastic quickness. Soon, he
was swinging the waitress around with the rest of the dancers, his foot
stamping on the turns, his white teeth gleaming. Finally the number ended and
the members of the band put down their instruments and began to leave the
stand.
The Prince, with the girl trying to hold him back, walked
over to the band leader. Kyle got up quickly from his table and started toward
the floor.
The band leader was shaking his head. He turned
abruptly and slowly walked away. The Prince started after him, but the girl
took hold of his arm, saying something urgent to him.
He brushed her aside and she stumbled a little. A
busboy among the tables on the far side of the dance floor, not much older than
the Prince and nearly as tall, put down his tray and vaulted the railing onto
the polished hardwood. He came up behind the Prince and took hold of his arm,
swinging him around.
". . . Can't do that here." Kyle heard him
say, as Kyle came up. The Prince struck out like a panther – like a trained boxer
– with three quick lefts in succession into the face of the busboy, the
Prince's shoulder bobbing, the weight of his body in behind each blow.
The busboy went down. Kyle, reaching the Prince,
herded him away through a side gap in the railing. The young man's face was
white with rage. People were swarming onto the dance floor.
"Who was that? What's his name?" demanded
the Prince, between his teeth. "He put his hand on me! Did you see that? He
put his hand on me! "
"You knocked him out," said Kyle. "What
more do you want?"
"He manhandled me – me! " snapped the Prince. "I
want to find out who he is!" He caught hold of the bar to which the horses
were tied, refusing to be pushed farther. "He'll learn to lay hands on a
future Emperor!"
"No one will tell you his name," said Kyle.
And the cold note in his voice finally seemed to reach through to the Prince
and sober him. He stared at Kyle.
"Including you?" he demanded at last.
"Including me, Lord," said Kyle.
The Prince stared a moment longer, then swung away. He
turned, jerked loose the reins of the gelding and swung into the saddle. He
rode off. Kyle mounted and followed.
They rode in silence into the forest. After a while,
the Prince spoke without turning his head.
"And you call yourself a bodyguard," he said,
finally.
"Your life is in my hands, Lord," said Kyle.
The Prince turned a grim face to look at him.
"Only my life?" said the Prince. "As
long as they don't kill me, they can do what they want? Is that what you
mean?"
Kyle met his gaze steadily.
"Pretty much so, Lord," he said.
The Prince spoke with an ugly note in his voice.
"I don't think I like you, after all, Kyle,"
he said. "I don't think I like you at all."
"I'm not here with you to be liked, Lord,"
said Kyle.
"Perhaps not," said the Prince, thickly.
"But I know your name!"
They rode on in continued silence for perhaps another
half hour. But then gradually the angry hunch went out of the young man's
shoulders and the tightness out of his jaw. After a while he began to sing to
himself, a song in a language Kyle did not know; and as he sang, his
cheerfulness seemed to return. Shortly, he spoke to Kyle, as if there had never
been anything but pleasant moments between them.
Mammoth Cave was close and the Prince asked to visit
it. They went there and spent some time going through the cave. After that they
rode their horses up along the left bank of the Green River. The Prince seemed
to have forgotten all about the incident at the beer garden and be out to charm
everyone they met. As the sun was at last westering toward the dinner hour,
they came finally to a small hamlet back from the river, with a roadside inn
mirrored in an artificial lake beside it, and guarded by oak and pine trees
behind.
"This looks good," said the Prince. "We'll stay overnight
here, Kyle."
"If you wish, Lord," said Kyle.
They halted, and Kyle took the horses around to the
stable, then entered the inn to find the Prince already in the small bar off
the dining room, drinking beer and charming the waitress. This waitress was
younger than the one at the beer garden had been; a little girl with soft,
loose hair and round brown eyes that showed their delight in the attention of
the tall, good-looking, young man.
"Yes," said the Prince to Kyle, looking out
of the corners of the Imperial blue eyes at him, after the waitress had gone to
get Kyle his coffee, "This is the very place."
"The very place?" said Kyle.
"For me to get to know the people better – what
did you think, good Kyle?" said the Prince and laughed at him. "I'll
observe the people here and you can explain them – won't that be good?"
Kyle gazed at him, thoughtfully.
"I'll tell you whatever I can, Lord," he
said.
They drank – the Prince his beer, and Kyle his coffee –
and went in a little later to the dining room for dinner. The Prince, as he had
promised at the bar, was full of questions about what he saw – and what he did
not see.
". . . But why go on living in the past, all of
you here?" he asked Kyle. "A museum world is one thing. But a museum
people –" he broke off to smile and speak to the little, soft-haired
waitress, who had somehow been diverted from the bar to wait upon their
dining-room table.
"Not a museum people, Lord," said Kyle.
"A living people. The only way to keep a race and a culture preserved is
to keep it alive. So we go on in our own way, here on Earth, as a living
example for the Younger Worlds to check themselves against."
"Fascinating . . ." murmured the Prince; but
his eyes had wandered off to follow the waitress, who was glowing and looking
back at him from across the now-busy dining room.
"Not fascinating. Necessary, Lord," said
Kyle. But he did not believe the younger man had heard him.
After dinner, they moved back to the bar. And the
Prince, after questioning Kyle a little longer, moved up to continue his
researches among the other people standing at the bar.
Kyle watched for a little while. Then, feeling it was safe to do so,
slipped out to have another look at the horses and to ask the innkeeper to
arrange a saddle lunch put up for them the next day.
When he returned, the Prince was not to be seen.
Kyle sat down at a table to wait; but the Prince did
not return. A cold, hard knot of uneasiness began to grow below Kyle's
breastbone. A sudden pang of alarm sent him swiftly back out to check the
horses. But they were cropping peacefully in their stalls. The stallion
whickered, low-voiced, as Kyle looked in on him, and turned his white head to
look back at Kyle.
"Easy, boy," said Kyle and returned to the
inn to find the innkeeper.
But the innkeeper had no idea where the Prince might
have gone.
". . . If the horses aren't taken, he's not far," the
innkeeper said. "There's no trouble he can get into around here. Maybe he
went for a walk in the woods. I'll leave word for the night staff to keep an
eye out for him when he comes in. Where'll you be?"
"In the bar until it closes – then, my room," said Kyle.
He went back to the bar to wait, and took a booth near
an open window. Time went by and gradually the number of other customers began
to dwindle. Above the ranked bottles, the bar clock showed nearly midnight.
Suddenly, through the window, Kyle heard a distant scream of equine fury from
the stables.
He got up and went out quickly. In the darkness
outside, he ran to the stables and burst in. There in the feeble illumination
of the stable's night lighting, he saw the Prince, pale-faced, clumsily
saddling the gelding in the center aisle between the stalls. The door to the
stallion's stall was open. The Prince looked away as Kyle came in.
Kyle took three swift steps to the open door and
looked in. The stallion was still tied, but his ears were back, his eyes
rolling, and a saddle lay tumbled and dropped on the stable floor beside him.
"Saddle up," said the Prince thickly from
the aisle. "We're leaving." Kyle turned to look at him.
"We've got rooms at the inn here," he said.
"Never mind. We're riding. I need to clear my
head." The young man got the gelding's cinch tight, dropped the stirrups
and swung heavily up into the saddle. Without waiting for Kyle, he rode out of
the stable into the night.
"So, boy . . ." said Kyle soothingly to the
stallion. Hastily he untied the big white horse, saddled him, and set out after
the Prince. In the darkness, there was no way of ground-tracking the gelding;
but he leaned forward and blew into the ear of the stallion. The surprised
horse neighed in protest and the whinny of the gelding came back from the
darkness of the slope up ahead and over to Kyle's right. He rode in that
direction.
He caught the Prince on the crown of the hill. The
young man was walking the gelding, reins loose, and singing under his breath –
the same song in an unknown language he had sung earlier. But, now as he saw
Kyle, he grinned loosely and began to sing with more emphasis. For the first
time Kyle caught the overtones of something mocking and lusty about the
incomprehensible words. Understanding broke suddenly in him.
"The girl!" he said. "The little
waitress. Where is she?"
The grin vanished from the Prince's face, then came
slowly back again. The grin laughed at Kyle.
"Why, where d'you think?" The words slurred
on the Prince's tongue and Kyle, riding close, smelled the beer heavy on the
young man's breath. "In her room, sleeping and happy. Honored . . . though
she doesn't know it . . . by an Emperor's son. And expecting to find me there
in the morning. But I won't be. Will we, good Kyle?"
"Why did you do it, Lord?" asked Kyle,
quietly.
"Why?" The Prince peered at him, a little
drunkenly in the moonlight. "Kyle, my father has four sons. I've got three
younger brothers. But I'm the one who's going to be Emperor; and Emperors don't
answer questions."
Kyle said nothing. The Prince peered at him. They rode on together for
several minutes in silence.
"All right, I'll tell you why," said the
Prince, more loudly, after a while as if the pause had been only momentary.
"It's because you're not my bodyguard, Kyle. You see, I've seen
through you. I know whose bodyguard you are. You're theirs! "
Kyle's jaw tightened. But the darkness hid his
reaction.
"All right –" The Prince gestured loosely, disturbing his balance in the saddle. "That's all right. Have it your way. I don't mind. So, we'll play points. There was that lout at the beer garden, who put his hands on me. But no one would tell me his name, you said. All right, you managed to bodyguard him. One point for you. But you didn't manage to bodyguard the girl at the inn back there. One point for me. Who's going to win, good Kyle?"
Kyle took a deep breath.
"Lord," he said, "some day it'll be
your duty to marry a woman from Earth –"
The Prince interrupted him with a laugh, and this time
there was an ugly note in it.
"You flatter yourselves," he said. His voice
thickened. "That's the trouble with you – all you Earth people – you
flatter yourselves."
They rode on in silence. Kyle said nothing more, but
kept the head of the stallion close to the shoulder of the gelding, watching
the young man closely. For a little while the Prince seemed to doze. His head
sank on his chest and he let the gelding wander. Then, after a while, his head
began to come up again, his automatic horseman's fingers tightened on the
reins, and he lifted his head to stare around in the moonlight.
"I want a drink," he said. His voice was no
longer thick, but it was flat and uncheerful. "Take me where we can get
some beer, Kyle."
Kyle took a deep breath.
"Yes, Lord," he said.
He turned the stallion's head to the right and the
gelding followed. They went up over a hill and down to the edge of a lake. The
dark water sparkled in the moonlight and the farther shore was lost in the
night. Lights shone through the trees around the curve of the shore.
"There, Lord," said Kyle. "It's a
fishing resort, with a bar."
They rode around the shore to it. It was a low, casual building, angled to face the shore; a dock ran out from it, to which fishing boats were tethered, bobbing slightly on the black water. Light gleamed through the windows as they hitched their horses and went to the door.
The barroom they stepped into was wide and bare. A
long bar faced them with several planked fish on the wall behind it. Below the
fish were three bartenders – the one in the center, middle-aged, and wearing an
air of authority with his apron. The other two were young and muscular. The
customers, mostly men, scattered at the square tables and standing at the bar
wore rough working clothes, or equally casual vacationers' garb.
The Prince sat down at a table back from the bar and
Kyle sat down with him. When the waitress came they ordered beer and coffee,
and the Prince half-emptied his stein the moment it was brought to him. As soon
as it was completely empty, he signaled the waitress again.
"Another," he said. This time, he smiled at
the waitress when she brought his stein back. But she was a woman in her
thirties, pleased but not overwhelmed by his attention. She smiled lightly back
and moved off to return to the bar where she had been talking to two men her
own age, one fairly tall, the other shorter, bullet-headed and fleshy.
The Prince drank. As he put his stein down, he seemed
to become aware of Kyle, and turned to look at him.
"I suppose," said the Prince, "you
think I'm drunk?"
"Not yet," said Kyle.
"No," said the Prince, "that's right. Not
yet. But perhaps I'm going to be. And if I decide I am, who's going to stop
me?"
"No one, Lord."
"That's right," the young man said,
"that's right." He drank deliberately from his stein until it was
empty, and then signaled the waitress for another. A spot of color was
beginning to show over each of his high cheekbones. "When you're on a
miserable little world with miserable little people . . . hello, Bright
Eyes!" he interrupted himself as the waitress brought his beer. She
laughed and went back to her friends. ". . . You have to amuse yourself
any way you can," he wound up.
He laughed to himself.
"When I think how my father, and Monty –
everybody – used to talk this planet up to me –" he glanced aside at Kyle.
"Do you know at one time I was actually scared – well, not scared exactly,
nothing scares me . . . say concerned – about maybe having to come here,
some day?" He laughed again. "Concerned that I wouldn't measure up to
you Earth peo- ple! Kyle, have you ever been to any of the Younger
Worlds?"
"No," said Kyle.
"I thought not. Let me tell you, good Kyle, the
worst of the people there are bigger, and better-looking and smarter, and
everything than anyone I've seen here. And I, Kyle, I – the Emperor-to-be – am
better than any of them. So, guess how all you here look to me?" He stared
at Kyle, waiting. "Well, answer me, good Kyle. Tell me the truth. That's
an order."
"It's not up to you to judge, Lord," said Kyle.
"Not –? Not up to me?" The blue eyes blazed.
"I'm going to be Emperor!"
"It's not up to any one man, Lord," said
Kyle. "Emperor or not. An Emperor's needed, as the symbol that can hold a
hundred worlds together. But the real need of the race is to survive. It took
nearly a million years to evolve a survival-type intelligence here on Earth.
And out on the newer worlds people are bound to change. If something gets lost
out there, some necessary element lost out of the race, there needs to be a
pool of original genetic material here to replace it."
The Prince's lips grew wide in a savage grin.
"Oh, good, Kyle – good!" he said. "Very
good. Only, I've heard all that before. Only, I don't believe it. You see –
I've seen you people, now. And you don't outclass us, out on the Younger
Worlds. We outclass you. We've gone on and got better, while you
stayed still. And you know it."
The young man laughed softly, almost in Kyle's face.
"All you've been afraid of, is that we'd find
out. And I have." He laughed again. "I've had a look at you; and now
I know. I'm bigger, better and braver than any man in this room – and you know
why? Not just because I'm the son of the Emperor, but because it's born in me!
Body, brains and everything else! I can do what I want here, and no one on this
planet is good enough to stop me. Watch."
He stood up, suddenly.
"Now, I want that waitress to get drunk with
me," he said. "And this time I'm telling you in advance. Are you
going to try and stop me?"
Kyle looked up at him. Their eyes met.
"No, Lord," he said. "It's not my job
to stop you."
The Prince laughed.
"I thought so," he said. He swung away and
walked between the tables toward the bar and the waitress, still in
conversation with the two men. The Prince came up to the bar on the far side of
the waitress and ordered a new stein of beer from the middle-aged bartender.
When it was given to him, he took it, turned around, and rested his elbows on
the bar, leaning back against it. He spoke to the waitress, interrupting the
taller of the two men.
"l've been wanting to talk to you," Kyle heard him say.
The waitress, a little surprised, looked around at
him. She smiled, recognizing him – a little flattered by the directness of his
approach, a little appreciative of his clean good looks, a little tolerant of
his youth.
"You don't
mind, do you?" said the Prince, looking past her to the bigger of the two
men, the one who had just been talking. The other stared back, and their eyes
met without shifting for several seconds. Abruptly, angrily, the man shrugged,
and turned about with his back hunched against them.
"You see?" said the Prince, smiling back at
the waitress. "He knows I'm the one you ought to be talking to, instead of
–"
"All right, sonny. Just a minute."
It was the shorter, bullet-headed man, interrupting.
The Prince turned to look down at him with a fleeting expression of surprise.
But the bullet-headed man was already turning to his taller friend and putting
a hand on his arm.
"Come on back, Ben," the shorter man was
saying. "The kid's a little drunk, is all." He turned back to the
Prince. "You shove off now," he said. "Clara's with us."
The Prince stared at him blankly. The stare was so
fixed that the shorter man had started to turn away, back to his friend and the
waitress, when the Prince seemed to wake.
"Just a minute –" he said, in his turn.
He reached out a hand to one of the fleshy shoulders
below the bullet head. The man turned back, knocking the hand calmly away.
Then, just as calmly, he picked up the Prince's full stein of beer from the bar
and threw it in the young man's face.
"Get lost," he said, unexcitedly.
The Prince stood for a second, with the beer dripping
from his face. Then, without even stopping to wipe his eyes clear, he threw the
beautifully trained left hand he had demon-strated at the beer garden.
But the shorter man, as Kyle had known from the first
moment of seeing him, was not like the busboy the Prince had decisioned so
neatly. This man was thirty pounds heavier, fifteen years more experienced, and
by build and nature a natural bar fighter. He had not stood there waiting to be
hit, but had already ducked and gone forward to throw his thick arms around the
Prince's body. The young man's punch bounced harmlessly off the round head, and
both bodies hit the floor, rolling in among the chair and table legs.
Kyle was already more than halfway to the bar and the
three bartenders were already leaping the wooden hurdle that walled them off.
The taller friend of the bullet-headed man, hovering over the two bodies, his
eyes glittering, had his boot drawn back ready to drive the point of it into
the Prince's kidneys. Kyle's forearm took him economically like a bar of iron
across the tanned throat.
He stumbled backwards choking. Kyle stood still, hands
open and down, glancing at the middle-aged bartender.
"All right," said the bartender. "But don't do anything
more." He turned to the two younger bartenders. "All right. Haul him
off!"
The pair of younger, aproned men bent down and came up
with the bullet-headed man expertly handlocked between them. The man made one
surging effort to break loose, and then stood still.
"Let me at him," he said.
"Not in here," said the older bartender.
"Take it outside."
Illustration by RICK BRYANT
Between the tables, the Prince staggered unsteadily to
his feet. His face was streaming blood from a cut on his forehead, but what
could be seen of it was white as a drowning man's. His eyes went to Kyle,
standing beside him; and he opened his mouth – but what came out sounded like
something between a sob and a curse.
"All right," said the middle-aged bartender
again. "Outside, both of you. Settle it out there."
The men in the room had packed around the little space
by the bar. The Prince looked about and for the first time seemed to see the
human wall hemming him in. His gaze wobbled to meet Kyle's.
"Outside . . . ?" he said, chokingly.
"You aren't staying in here," said the older
bartender, answering for Kyle. "I saw it. You started the whole thing.
Now, settle it any way you want – but you're both going outside. Now. Get
moving!"
He pushed at the Prince, but the Prince resisted,
clutching at Kyle's leather jacket with one hand.
"Kyle –"
"I'm sorry, Lord," said Kyle. "I can't
help. It's your fight."
"Let's get out of here," said the bullet-headed man.
The Prince stared around at them as if they were some strange set of
beings he had never known to exist before.
"No . . ." he said.
He let go of Kyle's jacket. Unexpectedly, his hand
darted in towards Kyle's belly holster and came out holding the slug pistol.
"Stand back!" he said, his voice high-toned.
"Don't try to touch me!"
His voice broke on the last words. There was a strange
sound, half grunt, half moan, from the crowd; and it swayed back from him.
Manager, bartenders, watchers – all but Kyle and the bullet-headed man drew
back.
"You dirty slob . . ." said the
bullet-headed man, distinctly. "I knew you didn't have the guts."
"Shut up!" The Prince's voice was high and
cracking. "Shut up! Don't any of you try to come after me!"
He began backing away toward the front door of the
bar.
The room watched in silence, even Kyle standing still.
As he backed, the Prince's back straightened. He hefted the gun in his hand.
When he reached the door he paused to wipe the blood from his eyes with his
left sleeve, and his smeared face looked with a first touch of regained
arrogance at them.
"Swine!" he said.
He opened the door and backed out, closing it behind
him. Kyle took one step that put him facing the bullet-headed man. Their eyes
met and he could see the other recognizing the fighter in him, as he had
earlier recognized it in the bullet-headed man.
"Don't come after us," said Kyle.
The bullet-headed man did not answer. But no answer
was needed. He stood still.
Kyle turned, ran to the door, stood on one side of it
and flicked it open. Nothing happe- ned; and he slipped through, dodging to his
right at once, out of the line of any shot aimed at the opening door.
But no shot came. For a moment he was blind in the
night darkness, then his eyes began to adjust. He went by sight, feel and
memory toward the hitching rack. By the time he got there, he was beginning to
see.
The Prince was untying the gelding and getting ready
to mount.
"Lord," said Kyle.
The Prince let go of the saddle for a moment and turned to look over his
shoulder at him.
"Get away from me," said the Prince,
thickly.
"Lord," said Kyle, low-voiced and pleading,
"you lost your head in there. Anyone might do that. But don't make it
worse now. Give me back the gun, Lord."
"Give you the gun?"
The young man stared at him – and then he laughed.
"Give you the gun?" he said again.
"So you can let someone beat me up some more? So you can not-guard me with
it?"
"Lord," said Kyle, "please. For your
own sake – give me back the gun."
"Get out of here," said the Prince, thickly,
turning back to mount the gelding. "Clear out before I put a slug in
you."
Kyle drew a slow, sad breath. He stepped forward and tapped the Prince
on the shoulder.
"Turn around. Lord," he said.
"I warned you –" shouted the Prince,
turning.
He came around as Kyle stooped, and the slug pistol
flashed in his hand from the light of the bar windows. Kyle, bent over, was
lifting the cuff of his trouser leg and closing his fingers on the hilt of the
knife in his boot sheath. He moved simply, skillfully, and with a speed nearly
double that of the young man, striking up into the chest before him until the
hand holding the knife jarred against the cloth covering flesh and bone.
It was a sudden, hard-driven, swiftly merciful blow.
The blade struck upwards between the ribs lying open to an underhanded thrust,
plunging deep into the heart. The Prince grunted with the impact driving the
air from his lungs; and he was dead as Kyle caught his slumping body in
leather-jacketed arms.
Kyle lifted the tall body across the saddle of the
gelding and tied it there. He hunted on the dark ground for the fallen pistol
and returned it to his holster. Then he mounted the stallion and, leading the
gelding with its burden, started the long ride back.
Dawn was graying the sky when at last he topped the
hill overlooking the lodge where he had picked up the Prince almost twenty-four
hours before. He rode down towards the courtyard gate.
A tall figure, indistinct in the pre-dawn light, was waiting inside the
courtyard as Kyle came through the gate; and it came running to meet him as he
rode toward it. It was the tutor, Montlaven, and he was weeping as he ran to
the gelding and began to fumble at the cords that tied the body in place.
"I'm sorry . . ." Kyle heard himself saying;
and was dully shocked by the deadness and remoteness of his voice. "There
was no choice. You can read it all in my report tomorrow morning –"
He broke off. Another, even taller figure had appeared
in the doorway of the lodge giving on the courtyard. As Kyle turned towards it,
this second figure descended the few steps to the grass and came to him.
"Lord –" said Kyle. He looked down into
features like those of the Prince, but older, under graying hair. This man did
not weep like the tutor, but his face was set like iron.
"What happened, Kyle?" he said.
"Lord," said Kyle, "you'll have my
report in the morning . . ."
"I want to know," said the tall man. Kyle's
throat was dry and stiff. He swallowed but swallowing did not ease it.
"Lord," he said, "you have three other
sons. One of them will make an Emperor to hold the worlds together."
"What did he do? Whom did he hurt? Tell me!"
The tall man's voice cracked almost as his son's voice had cracked in the bar.
"Nothing. No one," said Kyle,
stiff-throated. "He hit a boy not much older than himself. He drank too
much. He may have got a girl in trouble. It was nothing he did to anyone else.
It was only a fault against himself." He swallowed. "Wait until
tomorrow, Lord, and read my report."
"No! " The tall man caught at Kyle's saddle horn with a grip that
checked even the white stallion from moving. "Your family and mine have
been tied together by this for three hun- dred years. What was the flaw in my
son to make him fail his test, back here on Earth? I want to
know! "
Kyle's throat ached and was dry as ashes.
"Lord," he answered, "he was a
coward."
The hand dropped from his saddle horn as if struck
down by a sudden strengthlessness. And the Emperor of a hundred worlds fell
back like a beggar, spurned in the dust.
Kyle lifted his reins and rode out of the gate, into
the forest away on the hillside. The dawn was breaking.