Ardor on Aros (15 page)

How,
I thought, tramping down that long purple carpet,
am I to do it? Oh, the old girl told me what I must do—but not how. Now how the holy hell does a man—a man, and nothing more, even if I have always thought it was quite a bit—match wits and powers with a bonafide certified witch?

And I hadn’t even a dog, a scarecrow, a lion, and a woodman, tin or otherwise.

But I walked that long carpet two days after my conversation—onesided conversation!—with the ex-Jadiriyah of Brynda, and at the narrow purple strip’s other end was a dais, and on the dais sat, as if enthroned custodians of empire, the Guildmaster of Brynda and his witch-daughter.

I had made my appeal; it had been granted because there was no other course to Shayhara, and now here I was for my audience/trial. Present were representatives of the Crown and the Merchants’ Guild and the Artisans’ and four scribes. One would record all Shayhara’s words; another mine, another Solah’s. The fourth would scratch down anything said by anyone else.

(The Crown: a figurehead, of course, living a sterile life in his magnificent palace surrounded by Guildsmen for protection and as spies, allowed to poke out his face now and again to crown his son as heir, or dedicate this or that, or proclaim this or that, or say something sweet and innocuous. Yet he was revered, that powerless man, him and his family, for he and his house were a lasting symbol, a slender thread of gold connecting past and future and present. And when Nero sent his commands to the Senate there was still the pretense that they were the power in Rome, in a precisely opposite situation. Here people called themselves a kingdom while being ruled by several guilds—which were in turn dominated by one guild, it dominated by one man, and him by one lovely girl with the face an of American actress.)

“Hank Ardor of America, Guildsman First.” The words came from the Stentor to my left as I arrived at the stripe across the purple carpet beyond which I could not step. I halted and bowed my head, briefly, before looking up at the Guildmaster and his daughter—the Guildmistress!

He stared back. Perhaps he was fifty, perhaps forty; I have commented that people tend to age faster here. He was entirely bald, I was told, and the Guild scalplock was secured to his head each morning by his very personal—and very mute—valet. He was obviously a physically powerful man, his chest and arms full of muscle and his naked calves knotted with it, like a ballet dancer or a circus aerialist. He word standard garb: one-sleeved red tunic over red trunks, short boots, bracers on his wrists. There was nothing to distinguish him as Master of the Warriors’ Guild, nothing to distinguish him from a recruit such as I was. No mark, no stripes or stars or eagles or even a sash or a pen or a medallion.

But he would be recognized by every man, woman, and child in Brynda and the outlying farmlands.

“You asked for Peoples’ Hearing, Hank Ardoris. Speak.” His voice was a perfectly normal voice, very clear, slightly, twangily nasal, but it was a voice that carried well.

“Guildmaster, Peoples’ Representatives. I am a total stranger to Brynda and the ways of Brynda. On the desert I met one Kro Kodres, a Guildsman of Brynda. He was dying, and my efforts at saving his life were to no end, although I spared him some pain. He advised me of the whereabouts of a girl, and at the time I thought ‘Jadiriyah’ was a name. He specified that I was to convey to her a ring. It appeared valuable, and I owed Kro Kodres nothing, but I went to seek her: on foot, on the Yellow Desert. I found her in the hands of two Vardors who would certainly have returned her as a slave to their women and lustful men. I slew them both. I returned her ring to her.”

“Stop.” The voice came from my right; the Artisans’ box. “Jadiriyah of Brynda: does this man speak true?”

“To my knowledge,” she said in a voice sheathed in steel and wrapped in ice. “He has neglected only to say that I
asked
him of the ring before he returned it to me.”

I waited. Shayhara nodded. “She made a statement to me that I was unfamiliar with, other than literally: ‘I offer you recompense.’ I thanked her. I must point out that Julan, as it exists in Brynda and this part of the world, does not exist in America. Thus I had no idea what she was offering, nor that it was ritual and that some ritual response was expected of me.”

“Stop.” From the Artisans again: “Pro Thoris and his daughter have both verified his. That is to say, this man had to have our custom explained to him by the silversmith of Artisan Street.”

The Jadiriyah lifted one lovely shoulder in a shrug, and another inch of pale breast rippled in the deep V of her gown. “Inadmissible; the silversmith and his daughter are his friends.”

It went on. I gave them the rest of my story, in little detail. There were a few interruptions that clearly indicated the Artisans were my friends, the Warriors my enemies. Sometime during that trial it occurred to me that my friend Stro Fentris was without doubt in trouble and might as well forget having his wife sew that white stripe on his tunic—or have he remove it, more likely.

By the time it was over—with me standing there all the while, the outcome was obvious.

Look, it’s true the merchants and the artisans have a great deal more in common than either of them has with the warriors. But—the artisans are more dependent upon the merchants than vice versa, and the merchants depend upon the Warriors Guild. If Shayhara were to call a strike or closeout against them—they would be stole blind and slide steadily into ruin as what caravans were sent out never returned. Eventually none would be sent at all. Obviously the merchants and the artisans could vote down the warriors—and then Shayhara would override them in Executive Decision.

Thus I would be convicted anyhow. But—that way the merchants would be in trouble, and so naturally I knew the vote would be Merchants/Warriors against Artisans: conviction two to one of the monstrous crime of willfully insulting the Jadiriyah. Shayhara could make some sympathetic noises, but after all his hands were tied…(they always were, unless a vote displeased him, in which case he either vetoed or Took Sanctions or called for a new trial).

I had known all this before I requested what Brynda calls a Public Trial. I was here for the drama, not justice. And the time came:

“All evidence has been heard. Guildsman First Hank Ardoris, do you stand ready to hear verdict and sentence?”

I looked straight back into Shayhara’s steady dark eyes, and I said “No.” And there was an instant turmoil of voices and rustling of clothes as men gasped and exclaimed and move to mutter. Solah looked shocked; her father raised his eyebrows; I smiled at Solah. Her eyes narrowed. Oh, the cruel petulance in that lovely little mout!

“You said no?” The Guildmaster leaned forward. “I assume you will tell us why.”

“I do not admit to your authority,” I told him, with adrenalin going through me sufficient to power an Olympic team to victory.

He sat back. Just as he started to speak his daughter did: “WHY?”

More turmoil; heads swung and again everyone exclaimed and muttered as through one high-set and glassless window flew the green streak that was Pope Borgia. He swooped over the seated merchants, causing a few heads to jerk ludicrously down, and he came straight in and executed a marvelous landing on my right shoulder. He stared at the enthroned Guildmaster and daughter.

“Because he can’t be tried by a silly stacked little court like this! Pope Borgia screeched, in his newly—and miraculously, as far as I was concerned—acquired Arone. “He isn’t just a man you can run through this comical mill ruled by one man who is ruled by one woman! Hank Ardor is a jadiriy!”

When the nose died down: “This…talking bird says that you are a…a sorcer
er
,” Sahyhara said, carefully, obviously never before having spoken the word without the female ending.

I nodded. “My messenger between this world and the world of shadow-power speaks true,” I said.

And there was another several minutes of hullabaloo, finally stemmed by the Stentor’s voice and by the Guildmaster’s rising.

“There are no male sorcerers.”

I shrugged. “In America there are no female sorcerers.”

“Simple enough,” Solah said coldly. “Let him prove his claim.”

“Can Shayhara Solah converse with birds? Send them from her and call them to her? Certainly, she can appear and disappear, moving from one place to another without being seen, but can she leap twenty feet?”
Leap tall buildings with a single bound?
I thought.

“My powers are not challenged.”

“Are mine?”

“Of course. You stand here a convicted criminal—“

“Ah!” I smiled. “I hope scribes are scribing. That is the first admission of what we all know: that the verdict was reached before the accused came here! I remind Shayharan Solah that I do NOT stand here a convicted criminal. I am simply an accused man who denies the power of this court to try him.”

“Simple enough,” came a voice from the warriors’ section. “Let him challenge the Jadiriyah.”

Silence, then the Guildmaster asked, “Do you challenge?”

“No, Guildmaster. I have no desire to play games with your daughter. Why should I challenge her to a contest?”

Under no circumstances,
the old woman Lalikah had said, and repeated it,
under NO circumstances are you to challenge her. It must be she who challenges
you,
Hank Ardor.

Of course Solah was equally adamant, but I knew what I was about and remained cool, while she grew angrier and angrier. Consider her background and her circumstances, and you understand readily that she lost her temper and shot to her feet and shot out a lovely arm to point at me, shouting, “I challenge this man! There shall be a contest of our powers, and woe be to him if he fails to match or best!”

I bowed my head. Knees shaky, armpits trickling chill wetness down my sides, I nodded. “I cannot refuse to accept such a sweetly-put proposition from such a charming lady.”

There was laughter, and someone from the Artisans’ section pointed out that I was here precisely because I had found myself able to resist a previous proposition from this same lovely lady, and there was more laughter.

“To begin with,” she snapped, her eyes bright and vicious, “join me!”

She grasped her ringed hand in her other, as she had done that night on the desert, and she closed her eyes. And vanished. She called out from the Warriors’ section, ten feet form me—fifteen or so feet from the throne. “JOIN me, O sorcerer!”

I looked at her smiling face and the smiling faces around her, and I nodded. Carefully I stripped off my jingling medallion: a slender leather strand threaded through the ring on Dr. Blakey’s chiming watch. Then, while they muttered, off came my tunic, with the parrot standing at my feet, a beady-eyed sentinel over the discarded gear.

“I call all to note that Solah”—using her name unadorned, a worse slap than my previous refusal to call her Jadiriyah—“used her ring, closed her eyes, and invisibly transported herself. I shall join her without ring or my amulets, with my eyes open and my hands open and bare, and you will see me.”

I pointed dramatically to her. I knew no one could resist: they all looked at her, and I jumped. Which brought me quite a lot of loud comments: I made it without difficulty, but cut it a little close so that I jostled her as I landed. She reeled back; I shot out a hand to grip her arm—without it she’d have bounced her shapely bottom off the marble floor. As soon as she had regained her balance she slapped my hand away.

“I join you, lovely lady.”

She stared at me, obviously shake; had I jumped or hadn’t I? She wasn’t sure—but even so, who could have jumped so far? Not she, certainly! And not—from a flatfooted start, at least—the finest athlete in the citystate.

But she was a woman, and she had to come back with something, so she challenged me to do it naked, and that embarrassed me a little, but I came out of the red trunks and submitted to a quick examination to insure I wore no charms—or anything else.

“Bighead! Beware my landing!” I shouted, and there were grins and chuckles, and eyes wavered between the parrot I was looking at and the girl several feet from me. Because, of course, my new name for Pope Borgia was the same as their gentler nickname for their Ring wearer. And so while no one stared directly at me, and while she glared around with blazing eyes, I really tried and soared over and past Pope Borgia. Several Artisans yowled and got the hell out of the way as I came down among them. A new record; I’d tried hard to throw myself forward rather than up, and so, like a line drive between pitcher and second, I went flying across the room to the tune of about twenty-five feet. I landed just in front of the Artisans’ Guild Jurors.

“Nice to be among friends,” I muttered, grinning, and then I turned from them; at least two had heard, and they quickly passed the word among their ranks. I ambled back to my clothes, ignoring the stares and exclamations. I donned the tunic. Then I walked over to retrieve my trunks. Without looking at the Jadiriyah—whom my peripheral vision told me had blown her cool and was staring at me like a bug-eyed child at the circus (ouch; nasty choice of analogy)—I picked up my trunks. As calmly as possibly, I donned them.

It is not an action conducive to calmness or to aplomb, struggling into one’s underwear before an audience staring at absolutely no one else.

Then I milked it a little; I told Pope Borgia—in English—to bring me my medallion, which he did, and I walked back to stage center and bowed to the Guildmaster—at whose side, in a fingersnap, stood his daughter.

“Is it permissible that I now ask my challenger to perform her feat naked?” I asked.

There was a deadly silence. Looking apolectic, Solah sat. Her father stared at me, looking as if he wished he were in Wappinger Falls. At last, quietly, painfully, he said, “It is.”

“Father!”

“I decline,” I said. “I have already seen the lady naked.” And I bowed.

Which got me more laughter and dirty looks; I was grandstanding, of course, and enjoying myself immensely. She had broken or overlooked the Law, and I had gone along with it and bested her, and now I had done it again, with words.