Starship Home (19 page)

Zoe was laughing more in relief than in amusement, and the Trollwife alongside her, who turned out to be Ulf’s wife, was also relieved when she saw that her man was not badly injured, but was on his feet again, and demanding a return match as soon as possible. They could not hear everything Zachary was saying, but he seemed to be begging off from the return match on the grounds of previous urgent commitments.

Zoe now found herself being drawn away from the fretwork screen. Apparently it was the custom for the Trollwives to join their men after dinner, and they were assuming that Zoe would accompany them. What disturbed Zoe was not their assumption that she should accompany them, but their equally strongly-held assumption that she would want to be dressed in the same way they were. The idea of getting into a long dress and veil did not appeal to Zoe. The idea appealed to her so little, that the Trollwives ended up having to hold her down and put her Trollwife dress on over her tracksuit in order to get her dressed at all. Finally, Zoe looked at herself in a mirror, and even though the tracksuit made her look plumper than normal, she decided that it might after all be fun to go in fancy dress.

As this was happening, the guard on the roof was peering down toward the trail from the forest. Emerging from the forest were things that looked like two giant eyes, throwing beams of light up the hill toward the castle. The guard went to the speaking tube and picked it up. ‘Autobile coming!’ he shouted. ‘Could be a raid!’

Beneath the guard, in the hall of Trollcastle, Zachary was rapidly becoming the life of the party. He had borrowed a guitar from the Don’s minstrel, and had just finished singing
Old Shep
. His rendition had reduced Ulf to tears. Ulf, as he often said himself, was a sucker for the classics. Zachary had just started in on that other classic
Heartbreak Hotel
when a bell began to clang somewhere in the building. From its sonorous tone, Zachary suspected that this particular bell had once hung either in a schoolyard or a church.

‘Just take a walk down Lonely Street to Heartbreak Hotel,’ Zachary was singing to his own guitar accompaniment, when he noticed that he was losing his previously very appreciative audience. They were running, not walking, from the room and drawing their swords as they went.

As Zachary’s song trailed to a rather uncertain end only moments after it had begun, the Don moved to a speaking tube situated behind the high table. He listened, and then shouted ‘Autobile coming up the road! Raid maybe!’ and dashed out after his men.

Zachary found that he and Father John were the only ones left in the hall. Even the minstrel boy had drawn a sword and to the wars had gone. ‘You don’t help out with the fighting?’ Zachary asked the priest.

‘Only in self-defence,’ said the priest, and hefted his wooden staff, which Zachary now noticed had been drilled out at one end and filled with a grey metal, probably lead. The other end of the staff was shod with steel. ‘I’m not actually supposed to spill blood,’ Father John added.

Zachary made a mental resolution not to come within range of the staff when the priest was practising self-defence. ‘You get a lot of this? Autobiles coming through?’

‘People still occasionally find stores of gasoline and get engines running for a while. Mostly any gasoline we find, we save for sieges.’

‘Sieges,’ said Zachary, ‘right. I can see how buckets of burning gasoline might discourage people from climbing walls and things.’

‘I’m not entirely sure it’s a just weapon,’ said the priest, ‘but perhaps when used against infidels…’

‘Me personally, I’ve never cared much for infidels.’

Father John looked at Zachary curiously. ‘But you said in the dungeon that you were one.’ Zachary thought about burning gasoline. ‘I was distraught,’ he said, ‘and didn’t know what I was saying.’

In the women’s room, when the bell began to ring, the women became very excited. Some thought it might be barbarians from the coast, and others thought it might be Sullivans. Zoe could not get a clear picture of what Sullivans were. Apart from the fact that they rode horses and were led by the Sullivan Himself, there was a diversity of opinion among the women about them. Some said that they were Protestants and others said they worshipped the Sun God, and still others felt that this was very much the same thing. Some said that Sullivans always respected the women of the family, and others had theories about what Sullivans did to the women of the family, theories that Zoe felt, really, she could have done without hearing discussed. Horror movies were one thing but real live Sullivans (whoever they were) pouring through the doorway and improvising the script for one were different things entirely.

Whatever was going on, the bell had meant that it was an emergency, and to the Trollwives this had meant that Zoe had to have a veil on. No decent woman, it appeared, could face an emergency unveiled. After a certain amount of persuasion and struggle, Zoe now wore the veil, and the Trollwives were encouraging her by telling her that with a veil covering most of her face she was actually quite good looking.

This reminded Zoe of nothing quite so much as the “compliments” she had suffered from boys at school, but she decided that if the veil helped protect you from Sullivans she had, for the moment, better wear one.

Meanwhile, up the road toward the castle came the school bus, headlights blazing, horn blaring, parking lights on, indicator lights flashing and beeping..

Inside, Harold was delighted with what he thought the effect must be. ‘They’ll be terrified!’ he crowed, ‘they’ll think it’s a dragon!’ he exulted. ‘They’re going to have to change their iron underwear…’ he was saying when his eyes bulged with terror and he yelled in panic.

For with a massive thud, something very large had landed on the roof of the bus, and as Harold looked out the window to see what this might be, Ulf’s face appeared only inches from his, upside down, distorted with rage and screaming in berserker battle frenzy. Then Ulf’s right arm appeared and in his right hand was a battle axe with which he started to chop away the window.

Simultaneously, another Troll began chopping at the door of the bus, and others were standing in the light of the headlights, waving swords and axes.

The Wyzen uttered a long drawn out cry of ‘Wyyyyzen’ and ran to the back of the bus and Meg, finding she lacked the will to accelerate and run over 20 or 30 other human beings even if they did look like crazed Vikings, said: ‘I think I’ll just stop now,’ and brought the bus to a halt. She looked at the door of the bus. The dreadful armored man who had been chopping at it now stepped to one side, and jerked the remains of it out of the doorway, leaving the way clear for Meg knew not what.

Then a man dressed in black leather, a man from whose belt hung a sword and dagger, a compact, muscular man, not over-tall, but certainly tall enough, Meg thought before catching herself and thinking
tall enough for what, Meg Henderson?
, a man with crisp dark curling hair above a face on which were drawn lines of decision and leadership but whose eyes were those of a wounded poet, a man who walked with the simple grace of an athlete or dancer, a man about whom Meg found herself thinking
and just where have you been all my life then?
stepped up to the doorway of the bus and said: ‘May I be of some assistance?’

The Don found himself looking into the eyes of the woman behind the wheel. For him it was the thunderbolt, the experience which cannot be translated into words, the sudden realization that this was she, the woman he had been born to spend the rest of his life with. The woman stood and moved down the steps of the bus and he took her arm. ‘I apologize for any damage to your school bus. My men thought the Sullivan clan might have been raiding.’

He only half-heard the boy’s question, ‘you know it’s a school bus then?’

His eyes were on the woman’s eyes as he replied, ‘It says so on the front.’

‘You can read?’ the boy’s voice seemed to come from far away.

‘Can’t you?’ the Don said, still looking at the lady. ‘Will you be my guest?’ he said to her.

She gazed at him, and found she was, for once in her life, lost for words, and so she nodded. Harold was looking at Meg and wondering if she had suffered concussion. She seemed drugged. She was walking off toward the castle on the Don’s arm. ‘Meg?’ Harold called, ‘I think he’s the one you said was a fascist gorilla?’

‘Shut up, Harold,’ Meg reasoned, and continued to smile as if in a daze at the Don as he escorted her into Trollcastle.

‘Stay here Wyzen,’ Harold called to the Wyzen. ‘Looks like it’s up to me to sort all this out,’ and with that he followed Meg and the Don into Trollcastle, the Wyzen trotting after him. As they went in, the bell tolled three times, sounding the all clear.

As the all clear sounded, Zachary was quietly fingering the tune of
Blue Suede Shoes
on the minstrel’s guitar. If Elvis Presley classics were all the go here, he, Zachary Owens, was willing to oblige, having always been partial to the King’s early work himself. Zachary was feeling particularly smug, always a danger sign with him. He had survived Testing, and seemed to be getting on well with the Don. Perhaps there was a future here in the future after all, once they had solved the little problem of Guinevere’s self-destruct. He turned to Father John. ‘Now I’m through the Testing, I’m free to go?’

‘Free to stay,’ the priest said. ‘Free to join the Don’s service.’

Zachary remembered then that the Don had said something about this, but it had gone out of his head because at the time he had been in a state of abject snivelling terror, and being in a state of abject snivelling terror always made him forget things, particularly things he was agreeing to in order to get out of trouble.

At the time, the idea of being in the Don’s service had seemed an enviable alternative to the death penalty or being sold into slavery up the river into Vic, which was what they now seemed to call the State of Victoria. The point was, he thought to himself as he appeared to be to concentrating on picking out the tune of
Blue Suede Shoes
on the guitar, now that the death penalty no longer loomed, and he had passed Testing so that he would not be sent up the river to Vic, the idea of serving the Don had lost much of its earlier appeal.

The Don was a noble man in all senses, Zachary was sure, but the fact was that serving other people was simply not Zachary’s best thing, unless those people went by the name of Zachary Owens.

‘You know, I’m not really sure about that, Father,’ Zachary said. ‘I mean, ah … I mean it’s a great honor to serve the Don but I’m not sure that I’m really worthy of it?’

‘Abandoned hussy!’ said Father John.

After a moment’s surprise. Zachary worked out that the priest was probably not speaking to him, so he looked up, and saw that Meg was walking into the hall on the Don’s arm, followed by Harold and the Wyzen. They in turn were followed by Ulf wearing a big foolish grin, and then came the remainder of the Troll men-at-arms.

‘I’m sure you’re right, Father,’ Zachary said, ‘she probably
is
an abandoned hussy, but she usually comes through very uptight, you know? School teacher type.’

‘You know this woman who comes unveiled with the Don?’

‘Uh huh.’ He looked at Meg and Harold, not feeling at all pleased with them. Here he had everything under control and back to what passed for normal in the 22
^nd
century, and they were walking in, complicating matters. ‘What are you two doing here?’ he asked them.

‘Rescuing you and Zoe,’ Harold said.

Zachary noticed that Meg did not answer. She was just looking at the Don as if she had been sandbagged. Zachary hated men who had that effect on women. He did not know how they did it, but he suspected it was a form of cheating and he could not abide cheats. ‘I had everything under control,’ he told Harold. Then he realized what Harold had just said. ‘Rescuing me and
Zoe
? Zoe’s not here.’

‘Zoe’s here,’ said Harold, ‘she came in half an hour after you did, and hasn’t come out.’

As they were talking, the Don was ordering more chairs for the high table, and male servants were fetching them, clearing the dishes, and generally making things right for the guests. It appeared to Zachary that the Don was not so much getting things right for the guests, plural, as the guest Meg Henderson singular, but he did not feel on solid enough ground yet with the Don to call attention to the fact. It might be yet another hanging offence, and he did not want to give Ulf his chance at a return bout quite so soon.

‘You’re sure?’ he said to Harold.

‘She climbed in the window. Into this room,’ Harold replied, waving a hand at the hall they were in. They were now being seated at the high table, and a small bell tinkled behind the curtain which ran along one side wall of the stage.

Zachary turned to Father John. ‘Harold says another of our party’s in the castle. The girl Zoe. You met her? You’d notice her, she’s got a bare face too.’

‘I’ve not heard she’s here.’

‘She wouldn’t be in a dungeon by any chance?’

‘Not that I’ve heard.’

Zachary and Harold were getting worried, but then the curtain was drawn back by a man servant, who then opened a door behind it. Through the doorway came the Trollwives, and among the first of them was a dark-haired one having trouble with her long dress, beneath which a pair of joggers was clearly visible. .

‘Is that you under there Zoe?’ Harold asked, with the beginnings of a broad grin.

‘Laugh and I’ll smash you one,’ said the veiled lady. ‘Snigger and you’re dead.’

Harold turned to Zachary. ‘It’s Zoe,’ he said. ‘I recognize the threats.’

Zachary was laughing.

‘Zachary?’ said Zoe’s voice from behind the Trollwife’s veil. ‘I promise you!’

Zachary got it under control for a moment, but his laughter broke out again as Zoe was seated by the other women opposite the Don. It was clear to Zoe that their matchmaking plans were gathering momentum. The Don looked at Zoe intently, and then frowned. ‘Whose wife is this?’ he asked.

‘No one’s wife, my lord,’ said one of the women.

‘Unmarried, 15, plump as a pigeon…’

‘I am not plump!’ said Zoe.

‘One of the iron castle people,’ Marlowe said.

‘We veiled her for you my lord,’ Ulf’s wife said. ‘To appear at her best. We can veil the other if you wish?’

‘No,’ said the Don, ‘we’ll not impose our customs on our guest.’ He smiled at Meg.

‘He thinks you’re really hot, Meg,’ Zoe said, relieved that the Don was not showing any interest in her direction.

Meg looked at Zoe and smiled glacially. ‘Love you in the veil, Zoe. If I were you I’d wear it always.’

Zoe’s answer to that was immediate and savage. She ripped her veil off and said, with a controlled sweetness which almost masked her anger: ‘I’m a guest too.’

The Don seemed not to notice. He had turned his attention to Meg. ‘Are you married?’ he asked.

‘No I’m not, I wish I hadn’t said that,’ said Meg.

‘And where is your father?’ said the Don. This line of questioning seemed to be producing a state of controlled hysteria among the veiled Trollwives, who had their heads together and were whispering.

Meg gazed at the Don bleakly. ‘My father, my mother and brothers were taken by the Slarn.’

‘Sad,’ said the Don. He thought for a moment and then looked at Zachary, and then back at Meg. ‘Then legally you’re under Zachary’s protection?’

‘I’m under nobody’s protection!’ Meg said angrily then rapidly changed her mind about that, and ‘yes I am,’ she said. ‘In fact. Legally. Under Zachary’s protection.’

The Don’s gaze turned to Zachary, who felt uncomfortable about the direction the conversation was taking. He sincerely wished never to end up in single combat with the Don whom he (as it happened correctly) suspected was a much tougher customer than good old Sir Ulf. ‘Well, we, ah … we’re just good friends. Nothing, ahm … I mean I wouldn’t even say constant companions, just … just friends?’

Meg’s voice was developing the sort of edge that Harold and Zoe associated with Wednesday detentions. ‘Zachary?’

‘A woman without a legal protector is of course in a difficult position under our law,’ said the Don. ‘She’s in somewhat the same position legally as an unclaimed piece of territory, that is, first permanent occupancy will grant ownership.’

‘
Zachary?
’

Meg’s voice, it seemed to Zachary, was taking on a somewhat hysterical tone. ‘I hate this kind of stuff, Meg, you know that, but sure, yeah, I guess you could say I was her legal protector.’ He looked around the table and grinned. ‘Women need a man around to look after them, right?’

‘That’s right!’ said Harold, earning himself a combined glare from Meg and Zoe.

‘You’re more intelligent than I thought,’ said Ulf to Zachary.

Zachary wondered whether this was a compliment coming from Ulf, who, to all appearances, had the intelligence of a bacterium, but he felt that now was not the time to argue the question. These people almost certainly practiced duelling, and he did not want Ulf to feel that he had been insulted in any way. It occurred to him in passing that people in societies which practised duelling must have very good manners indeed. Even the idea of it had induced in him a degree of politeness and sensitivity of which he had never previously thought himself capable.

‘You’re perfectly correct of course,’ the Don was saying to Zachary. ‘Women do need a man around to protect them. Having been Tested, you are in my service, and your first duty will be to protect the Lady…’

‘Henderson,’ said Meg. ‘My name’s Meg Henderson.’

‘A name that sings like music,’ said the Don.

Zachary wondered why he never got to say things like that. He guessed it probably came with looking like a prince and wearing swords.

‘You will look after the Lady Henderson,’ said the Don.

‘Fantastic,’ said Zachary. ‘Night and day.’ And then, realizing that this could be misinterpreted, he added, ‘In a perfectly respectable way of course.’

‘And tomorrow,’ said the Don, ‘I shall call upon you to discuss the marriage contract.’

‘Marriage contract?’ said Zachary.

‘Marriage contract?’ said Harold and Zoe in unison.

‘
Marriage contract
?’ gasped Meg as if she were suddenly out of breath.

‘I intend to marry the Lady Henderson,’ said the Don. ‘I’ve been widowed a year. I owe it to my realm to remarry and have sons. The Lady Henderson will be my new wife.’

The Trollwives’ whispering picked up tempo. If the increase in sound level and the animation of their gestures were any indications, they were delighted by the announcement. Marlowe’s eyes were flickering around the table in an agitated fashion as if trying to gauge reactions. Zachary thought the village warlock seemed less than happy with the news.

Zachary was meanwhile picking himself up off the mental canvas. ‘Isn’t this a little sudden, my lord? I mean she’s a very nice lady but you only just met her, and you might like to think about…?

‘What’s there to think about?’ said the Don. ‘You either want to marry someone or you don’t. What’s thinking got to do with it? She’s healthy, she’s beautiful, she clearly has excellent bloodlines, I love her, what else do I want?’

‘My agreement?’ said Meg. ‘My consent maybe? Little three-letter word like “yes” perhaps?’

The Don smiled at her and patted her hand. ‘My dear, I wouldn’t want a wife who didn’t show that kind of spirit,’ he said and turned to Zachary. ‘I’ll come to the iron castle in the morning to discuss the contract.’

‘I guess that means you’re not intending to cut our throats if we don’t move the castle now?’ Zachary asked, wanting to get things clear for Ulf’s benefit.

‘The situation’s changed,’ said the Don. ‘You stay. That’s an order. Understood?’

‘Now you just listen,’ Meg began but Zachary shook his head at her.

‘Tell me back at the starship,’ he said. ‘Just for once we’re slightly ahead of the game. Don’t blow it by using logic.’

Meg took a deep breath, leant back in her chair, narrowed her eyes and folded her arms. For a moment, Zachary wondered whether he would not rather hear her out now, while he still had Ulf to protect him.