CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The front hall of the king's castle was a vaulted arch in a gate bastion of the outer curtain wall. Unlike most of the city, the king's citadel was built of a combination of the local granite and limestone. The lower portions of the walls were the dark gray of the granite, but they were surmounted by the limestone in a pleasing duotone pattern. Although it was obviously intended for greeting and ceremony as much as for defense, the hall was unornamented aside from the pattern, and it was floored with simple paving stones. The far wall sported large, open windows, which revealed gardens in the bailey and an inner line of defenses.

The local ruler, along with a sizeable bodyguard of his own, greeted Roger's party in this public arena. Their passage uphill through the town had been much more muted than their reception, and Pahner had become increasingly suspicious that the mob scene had been staged.

"Welcome to Q'Nkok." The king, accompanied by a much younger son, greeted them with grave courtesy and glanced at the humans curiously and a bit warily. Pahner smiled behind his flickering visor; clearly, the king had already been apprised of their demonstration at his gates.

"I am Xyia Kan, ruler of this place," the king continued, and gestured to the youth at his side. "This is Xyia Tam, my son and heir."

Roger nodded calmly in response. He had taken off his armor's helmet, both so that his face would be clear and as a gesture of respect. The ruler appeared old. He had the slightly flabby skin and patchy mucus that Roger had noted on Cord, although it was worse in Xyia Kan's case.

"I am Prince Roger Ramius Sergei Alexander Chiang MacClintock, of the House MacClintock, and Heir Tertiary to the Throne of Man," he said formally. "I greet you in the name of the Empire of Man and as the representative of my mother, Empress Alexandra."

He really hoped that the toot was getting these terms right. He was becoming increasingly convinced that the translation software was screwing up something major. Little glitches were appearing in translation left and right and this was too important a meeting to get things wrong.

The "repeat" of his translation which the software played back to him had his mother momentarily as a male, which was a hoot. It had actually formed an image of her as a guy, and she really wasn't all that bad looking. His lips twitched, fighting to smile as he visualized her response to the image, but then, in response to another repeat query, he got an image of himself dressed as a fairy-tale princess, which quashed all humor. This software was definitely buggy as hell.

"We are travelers from a far land who have been stranded in this one," he continued with the story which had been decided upon as easier than trying to explain the truth. "We are passing through your kingdom on our way to a place where we can obtain passage to our home.

"We bring you these gifts," he continued, and turned to O'Casey, who deftly handed him one of the Marine multitools.

"This device can change its form into any of several useful objects," Roger said. It wasn't the sort of thing one commonly gave to a ruler, but they didn't have anything else that was better, and Roger quickly demonstrated the settings to Xyia Kan. The king watched closely, then nodded gravely, accepted the gift, and handed it to his son. The younger Mardukan was no more than a child, judging from what Roger had seen in Cord's village, and looked much more interested in the multitool, but restrained his curiosity admirably.

"Estimable gifts," the king said diplomatically. "I offer you the hospitality of the visitors' quarters of my home." He looked at the line of Marines and clasped his hands together. "You should be able to fit your force in there."

Roger nodded his head again in thanks.

"We appreciate that kindness," he said, and the king nodded in return and gestured to a hovering guard.

"D'Nok Tay will lead you to the quarters, and we shall meet more formally in the morning. For now, take your rest. I will have food and servants sent to your quarters."

"Thank you again," Roger said.

"Until then," the king responded, and walked out of the bastion, trailed by his son. The younger Mardukan, unlike his father, kept looking over his shoulder at the Marines until they were out of sight.

Roger waited until the king was decently gone, and then turned to the guard.

"Lead on."

D'Nok Tay turned without a word and walked out of the far door, but whereas the king had turned to the left on exiting, the guard turned to the right.

They proceeded across an open bailey and up a steep ramp. The ramp ran between the outer curtain wall and the base of the citadel proper, and the fairly narrow way was dark and dank. As they started to ascend it, the skies opened up in another monsoon-quality rainstorm and filled the narrow track with vertical water. The sound of pouring water and flying spray in the slotlike space was like the underside of a waterfall, but D'Nok Tay paid it no more attention than Cord or his nephews, and the humans did their best to emulate the natives. Fortunately, the ramp turned out to be well designed for the storms, and a slight outward slope carried the water to regular openings in the outer wall and thus out of the castle.

The whole town had obviously been designed to take advantage of the regular rains. The main road up which they'd traveled from the city gate had switched back and forth with very little rhyme or reason, but it, too, had been well designed to handle the water. Both sides had been lined with gutters which linked with others to carry the water around to the river side of the hill, where, presumably, it was dumped into the river.

The efficient storm water system also reduced, but did not eliminate, the problem of hygiene in the city. Clearly, the Mardukans had never heard of the concept, for the road had been strewn with feces from the Mardukans and their pack beasts. According to O'Casey, this was normal in lower technology cultures, but at least with the rains the majority would get washed away.

And it certainly explained The People's epithet for the townspeople.

The narrow ramp finally opened out to the level of the curtain wall's battlements, and the company was afforded a spectacular view of the surrounding countryside. The clouds had broken momentarily, the rain had stopped as abruptly as it had begun, and the larger moon, Hanish, was rising over the mountains to the east. They were about a hundred meters above the floodplain, and the valley of Q'Nkok spread out below them in the moonlight. The city was surprisingly dark to humans who were used to the streetlighting found in even small towns on the meanest worlds of the Empire, but the valley was a fairy-tale place under the primary moon.

The river glittered a silver tracery across the plain and the shimmer of water through the fields and irrigation ditches echoed it. The evening fires of farmers dotted the plain here and there, and the coughing roar of some beast from the jungle across the river could be heard even at their height.

Roger paused to take in the vista and found Despreaux beside him. Her squad had never been taken off "close protection," and she was still following him doggedly.

"You can probably drop back into the Company now," he said quietly, and raised one arm of his armor with a smile. "I don't think anything local is coming through this."

"Yes, Sir," she said. "You're probably right, but we haven't been relieved by our CO."

Roger started to open his mouth to object, but decided not to for two reasons. One was that scathing ass-chewing from Captain Pahner about interfering with the chain of command. The other was, frankly, that it was a pretty night and Despreaux was a pretty young woman, and he would be a fool to trade her for a random choice replacement. He looked back over the valley as the company passed, and smiled in the gathering darkness.

"When it's not awful, this can be a pretty place."

Despreaux sensed that the prince wanted more than a simple "yes, Sir; no, Sir," and nodded her head.

"I've seen worse, Your Highness." She thought about one assignment, in particular. The planet Diablo had the highest tectonic instability rating of any inhabited planet in the Empire, with air quality so low children were routinely kept inside until they were old enough to wear a breath pack properly. "Much worse," she said.

Roger nodded, and sensed that the tail of the company was catching up with them in the darkness of the ramp. He didn't want to break the spell, but it was time to move on again.

"We need to get moving, Your Highness," Despreaux said, as if she'd read his mind.

"Right," he said with a sigh. "Time to find out what new joy awaits us."

The "guest quarters" of the castle were odd. To reach them, the company passed through a doglegged tunnel sealed with two gates. At the far end, the tunnel led into a small open area, a bailey, and a single door into the building which was, effectively, a separate keep. The entryway was very low for a Mardukan—low enough that D'Nok Tay had to bend nearly double to lead the way—but about right for the humans.

The building beyond had three levels. There were no interior partitions on the first two levels, and no windows on the lowest one. The second level had small windows and a simple wooden floor that was accessible through a single trapdoor. The third level was also accessed through a single trapdoor, but was separated into six wooden-walled rooms grouped along a common corridor. All six of the rooms had large windows, with wooden shutters to seal them. On the ground floor was a simple latrine kept "flushed" by rainwater from the roof.

Roger stood in the largest of the rooms, looking out over the vista of the valley once again, with his hands on his hips.

"This is the strangest building I've ever seen," he commented to Pahner.

Matsugae had been laying out Roger's bedroll when the company commander entered the room. He looked up at the captain and winked, but Pahner just shook his head.

"Not really, Your Highness. It's a fort designed for visiting dignitaries. We can defend it even if the King turns on us, and he doesn't have to worry about us trying to take over from within. The gates in the tunnel may seal us in, but getting in here without our permission would be hard. For example, that door is offset so that you can't get a good run up with a ram. I'm happy with it."

Roger turned away from the view and looked at the Marine. The captain stood in the pool of shadow cast by the camp light in the corner, and his face was obscured. Not that Roger could have gotten anything from seeing it; except when he was really enraged, Pahner was very hard to read.

"Do you think Xyia Kan would turn on us?" the prince asked. The idea surprised him. The Q'Nkok monarch had seemed friendly enough to him.

"I didn't think there was a toombie onboard the DeGlopper, Your Highness," Pahner said bitterly, and Roger nodded.

"What are we going to do about it?" he asked reasonably.

"Get our stuff traded, get the supplies we need, and get out of town as fast as possible, Your Highness," Pahner said, and Roger nodded again and clasped his hands behind him.

He started to reply, then stopped himself. O'Casey's little lecture had been perking at the back of his mind, and he decided that now was a good time to start biting his tongue. And he had no specific problems with what Pahner had just said, only vague reservations. Until and unless they became more specific, it would be much smarter to just let it ride.

"I suppose we'll see tomorrow," was all he said.

"I'll go see about the arrangements downstairs then, Your Highness," Matsugae said. He'd set up the prince's sleeping area and laid out a fresh uniform.

The sight of the uniform sent a fresh prickle through Roger from the itch down his back, and he felt a sudden overwhelming desire to get out of the armor. The equipment had a cooling unit, so he hadn't suffered from the heat and humidity as much as the rest of the company, but it was still uncomfortable to wear hour after hour.

"I'm going to get out of this damn armor and have a good rubdown with a cleaning cloth," he announced.

"Yes, Your Highness," the captain said, with a faint frown.

"What?" Roger asked, stripping off the uniform.

"Well, Your Highness," the captain said carefully. "You might see about your rifle first."

The officer chuckled and shook his head at the prince's frown. "Just thinking of an old service poem, Your Highness. It ends `mind you keep your rifle and yourself just so.' "

Roger nodded. "I take your meaning, Captain." He glanced at the weapon and nodded again. "I know better than to go to bed with a fouled weapon; you never know if you'll wake up with a banshee in your tent. I'll take care of that first. But I'm not sure I'll be down for supper. I might just have a ration and go to bed."

"Yes, Sir," Pahner said. "If not tonight, I'll see you in the morning. We should discuss the audience beforehand."

"Agreed. In the morning then."

"Goodnight, Your Highness," Pahner said, and vanished into the shadows.