The Super Barbarians (6 page)

He gazed at me stonily. “You’ve been a nuisance,” he said without rancor. “If you’d been here, things would have been a lot quieter.”

“Why? What’s happened?”

“Pwill came back in a boiling temper from the city and sent for you. And today of all days you choose not to be present.”

My heart sank. “Where is he JIOW?” I demanded.

“Storming in the Grand Terrace,” Swallo answered shortly. “Or was at last report. If you see anyone going around like a kicked cur, that’ll be why.”

“He wasn’t due back till an hour before sunset!” I said.

“Pwill doesn’t take much account of clocks,” Swallo answered.

I hefted the weight of the can in my bundled-up cloak. It would be safer with Swallo than anyone, I thought. I handed it through the window of his office.

“Guard this till I come back,” I requested. “I think it best to go and face Himself at once.”

Swallo shrugged and took the cloak, feeling the weight in its folds but not asking questions. I was sure he would look when I had gone, but the can was unlabeled and short of opening it he would learn nothing. I wasn’t even sure that opening it would tell him anything, unless he sampled the contents and suddenly found himself irresistible to all the women on the estate, perhaps.

I departed at a run.

All the way across the main yard, along the corridors, up the stairs to the upper floor where the Grand Terrace was set to face the afternoon sun, people with faces as miserable as Swallo had warned me to expect kept recognizing me and throwing their hands up in gestures of relief. Some of them barked at me, demanding where I’d been all this time. I didn’t answer, and they didn’t try to stop me. Assuming he had come straight back here from his unsuccessful interview with Olafsson, Pwill Himself had had about two hours
in which to make his entire retinue and probably some of the less fortunate of his tenants feel the lash of his wrath.

Yesterday, it occurred to me, I would have gone quaking to face him in a mood like this; he was seldom really angry, though for show and to impress his inferiors he sometimes feigned rage. But today, having seen him come away from Olafsson’s as I had—defeated, on some small matter possibly, but defeated, by an Earthman—I felt a buoyant confidence. I was prepared to outface him, outwit him and, if I had to, outshout him.

When I came to the doors of the Grand Terrace the guards on duty there practically fell over each other with eagerness to let me by and take away the source of Himself’s anger.

A
LTHOUGH IT
WAS also an earsplitting bellow, the tone in which the nomenclator the other side of the terrace door announced my name and office was by way of a sigh of relief. Himself, pacing the white-tiled floor and snapping the heads off pot-plants with a swagger stick, halted and spun on his heel to look at me. In the long moment before he decided what first to blister my ears with, I saw that Over-lady Llaq was seated in one of the ornate chairs along the banquette of the terrace—her round, heavily lined face severe above her gorgeous robe of brocade—with three maids-in-waiting on cushions at her feet. Their faces were nervous, although they were trying desperately to smile. I also saw Pwill Heir Apparent.

I didn’t come much into contact with him any more. Pwill
Himself had decided on returning to Qallavarra—his son being by then nearly twenty years old—that the polish an Earthly tutor was supposed to impart was wasted on him. Nowadays the young hopeful was generally away from the house, supervising various of the far-flung enterprises of the family. I’d gathered that he wasn’t very diligent in learning the business.

He slouched now in a high-backed chair, his brilliant red satin shirt rumpled, his high black boots defiantly out-thrust across the floor, his face like thunder. Next to him, looking nervous, but trying to stand in a proper military fashion, was a young officer of the space fleet called Forrel, whom I knew to be a close friend of Pwill, Jr. He looked acutely unhappy.

“Where—have—you—been?” Pwill roared at me. Involuntarily the three maids-in-waiting and Forrell flinched.

I took my time over answering, coming another three paces closer. Also I bowed with extreme correctness to Over-lady Llaq, because I was of her personal retinue, and this surprised and pleased her.

The Grand Terrace was more of a conservatory than a terrace, actually; it was mainly of white and bright blue tile, and its chief decorations were magnificent orchidlike flowers in hand-carved alabaster tubs. At present, the day being warm, it was open to the air, but at night and in cold weather big glazed screens were manhandled into place to wall and roof it in. I thought it was a pity Pwill had chosen to have his blow-up in such a pleasant part of the house.

I said formally, having finished my bow, “With respect to Himself, it was my information that Himself and the Over-lady would be absent until sunset less an hour.”

“Seven gods of Casca-Olla!” Pwill said half under his breath. I memorized the oath with interest; if he swore by those gods
he might conceivably believe in them. Then he was bellowing again.

“I asked where you’d been—not where you thought I was!”

His temper was impressing everyone else, but it left me cold. I phrased my answer very carefully. “On the understanding that my services would not be required by Himself or the Over-lady until then, I put myself at the disposal of the Under-lady Shavarri for a task which could not easily be carried out except by an Earthman.”

That fazed him all right. It also made his son take notice. He looked at me suddenly as though he had never seen me before.

“You went to the Acre!” Pwill challenged.

I looked as bland as I could. “I was certain that Himself would not have failed to question the gatekeeper,” I said, trying to suggest that I did actually think he might overlook the obvious. “I was
punctilious
in informing the gatekeeper.”

Pwill, obviously at a loss, rubbed his chin with the back of his hand. There wasn’t anything he could accuse me of doing without looking silly; he had told Swallo he was going to be out until an hour before sunset, and I was back promptly at that time, and I had gone duly on an errand for one of his wives. He decided to make the best of a bad job.

“Hah!” he said, and strode to his big chair next to Llaq. “Hah!” he repeated.

Then I got the point. The reason he was so furious was not that I hadn’t been here when he returned; it was because he too had been in the Acre, and was afraid I might have seen him there! I was grateful that Marijane had thrown my cloak over my face.

“All right!” he barked after a pause. “Shaw, I have a job for you. Since you were just now talking of a task only an
Earthman could conveniently carry out, you ought to be pleased to do something different from your usual fiddling little odds and ends. It’s about time I made use of you as an Earthman instead of just another hanger-on.”

This wasn’t like Pwill Himself at all! What could have got into him?

His face betraying despondency, the young officer, Forrel, marched forward a pace. He said, “If Himself will permit, I ask leave to go away. This is a very personal matter and perhaps Himself would prefer to speak in private.”

“Get back where you were!” Pwill ordered. “Don’t try and make out you don’t know—probably better than the rest of us—what this mess is about!”

Forrell went the dark brick-color which among the Vorra indicated the counterpart of a blush, and stiffly returned to Pwill, Jr.’s side.

“As for you, Shaw!” Pwill resumed. “If I thought you’d been at all responsible for what’s happened, I’d have had you gutted and spitted on pikes long ago. But since my son tells me you didn’t, I’ll accept that. I think he’s still capable of telling the truth occasionally. I think!” He threw a venomous scowl at his heir, who returned it with interest.

“What do you know about—?” he continued, and stopped short, as though a word were on the tip of his tongue and he could not complete it. Llaq closed her hands on the arms of her chair and hissed between her teeth.

“Coffee!” Pwill finished, catching the hint his wife threw him.

Cautiously, not sure whether I had heard the word right mangled as it was by his mispronunciation, I said, “Well, it is a common drink among Earthfolk—it’s prepared from the seed of a plant, I think, which is roasted and then ground,
and boiled in water to extract the flavor. It’s dark brown in color. Ah—it’s taken hot, usually, sometimes with milk and sweetening.”

“You have drunk it yourself?” Pwill challenged.

“Why-yes!”

“But you can live without it?”

“Well, of course. I haven’t had any since I came to your world.”

He gestured at his son’s friend. “Forrel! Give me that flask!”

His son started out of his apathy with a muffled objection, but thought better of it. Reluctantly Forrel drew an article rather like an Earthly brandy flask out of his pocket and handed it to Pwill.

Hefting it in one hand, Pwill stared at me. “What does this—coffee—do to Earthfolk?”

I had to hesitate; Vorrish lacked words for stimulant and other terms I needed. Compromising, I said, “When drunk very strong, it helps to stave off the need of sleep. But usually it’s merely taken as a pleasant-tasting drink after a meal, or with a light snack.”

Pwill fumbled the cap off the flask and held it out to me. “Is that coffee?” he demanded.

I took the flask and spilled a few drops into the palm of my hand. I sniffed and tasted it. As far as I could tell, it was black coffee, weak, rather bitter, without sugar. I said cautiously, “As far I can judge, that is coffee.”

“Drink it!” commanded Pwill.

An agonized cry went up from his son, who bounded to his feet. Forrell tried to restrain him, but he wasn’t to be stopped. He seemed at first to be going for his father; then he thought better of it, and caught at his mothers hand.

“Don’t let him!” he pleaded. “That’s all there is left! Don’t let him!”

I’d caught on. I’d taken long enough about it. Coffee was not just a simple flavored drink; it was a whole complex mixture of alkaloids, including caffein. The metabolism of the Vorra was pretty close to our own, hence we could eat each other’s food without worse than minor allergies. Usually! That was the kicker. I thought of Kramer’s wife lying fever-ridden. I thought of my own carefully-tended diet-supplementing rows of ordinary Earthly vegetables, without which I would suffer scurvy, pellagra and other deficiency diseases.

Here was one point at which our metabolisms were different enough to cause serious trouble. Whatever coffee did to a Vorra, in the case of young Pwill it had certainly created an addiction.

Llaq gave her son a scornful look. She would have liked to tell him what she thought of him, but people outside the family were listening. The look was definitive, though; her son knew better than to go on appealing to her. Helplessly he stared at me.

I put the tip of my tongue between my teeth—as I would have winked at an Earthman.

It took him one second to catch on and return to his chair, practically smiling. I tipped the flask and drained it. It was awful coffee, but innocent enough so far as I could tell.

When I had finished, Pwill waited a few seconds as if he expected me to drop dead. I handed the flask back calmly, and he resigned himself to facts.

“This—son of mine,” he said, “declares that he cannot live a day without coffee now. He has spent his allowance on coffee imported from Earth, bought in the Acre without my
permission or knowledge. He has spent more than his allowance. It must stop’*

I waited. Pwill was working up to an admission, the biggest confession of failure in his life.

At the last moment he could not manage it, and turned to his wife, who had no such qualms. She said, “Today Himself has instructed the Earthfolk in the Acre not to supply any more of this poison to my 8011.”

My son. Not our son. This was her chief claim to influence: that she was the mother of the heir apparent. If her son was disinherited because of his addiction or some other cause, she would be disgraced and might well have to commit suicide rather than face one of her former juniors elevated to the coveted position of mother of the heir.

“But”—oh, she was putting this cleverly—”we cannot be sure this order will be obeyed. Your people are devious and unreliable; they are cunning. And naturally they are anxious for money. You have shown us that this ‘coffee’ which is poison to my son is harmless to you. Perhaps, then, the people in the Acre will think there is no real reason to withhold it from my son. Unless they do, however—”

Her iron self-control was not equal to finishing the phrase. On a different tack, she continued, “You know the regard the House of Pwill has for Earth; how well Himself governed your people and with what great interest in their way of life.”

In the hope, I glossed silently, of getting at our “secret”! But I looked attentive and helpful.

“We therefore look to you,” Llaq finished in a brittle tone, “to arrange this matter satisfactorily.”

Begging with his eyes, her son stared at me.

Well, this was a gift from the gods all right. The very day
I decided to make myself into an Earthman with mystic powers, here I’d been handed some very genuine power.

It must have cost the Over-lady dear to make that appeal. Only desperation could have driven her so far. I dared not push her further, or I might lose my whole advantage.

Bowing, I. said, “I will do my utmost. As you have so elegantly stated, however, it will be hard on the people of the Acre to lose this profitable transaction. Worse, I may have to explain the actual reason behind the command Himself gave today. It would be graver still if that were publicly known. I shall have to buy the silence of prominent key individuals.”

“I shall instruct the treasurer to give you a hundred platina tomorrow,” Pwill said in a gravelly voice. “It will be cheaper than to continue as at present. If it costs more, I shall want to know why—but you must do it anyway.”

My heart hammering, I asked leave to go away, and was given it.

I could hardly refrain from dancing for joy as I went to fetch my cloak and the can of “love potion” from Swallo’s office.