Chapter 15

1 MAKE AN ENEMY

The rustle of curtains drawn suddenly aside awakened me. I was aware of a warm pressure against my shoulder and side, and, turning my head slightly, I saw Niamh nestling against me. During the night she had rolled over in her sleep until now she lay cuddled in the curve of my arm, her cheek pillowed against my breast, one arm flung carelessly about my neck, her slender leg thrown over mine. I felt acutely embarrassed; yet, at the same time, my heart thudded breathlessly against my ribs and I savored the delicious excitement of her nearness and the warm pressure of her body against my own. She slept on, oblivious to the compromising position of intimacy into which her unconscious movements during slumber had placed us.

A throaty chuckle roused me from my dreamful contemplation of her tousled, drowsy loveliness. It was a nasty, suggestive snigger, and I looked about to discover its origin. And found it, to my instant displeasure.

Someone had drawn aside the curtains that screened our sleeping cubicle, and he stood at the entrance peering in. I recognized him at a glance. It was one of the huntsmen from the night before, a member of the party which had rescued Niamh and myself from the murderous embrace of the vampire blossom. I could not at once recall his name, although I soon learned that he was called Sligon. He was a little man with a twisted back, long, dangling, anthropoid arms, and something wrong with one leg so that he limped with a peculiar sidling gait like a crab.

He had a swarthy, ugly face with hot, leering eyes and his face habitually wore a sort of oily, knowing smirk. Among the tall, lean, manly foresters of Siona’s band, the hunched, sidling little man stood out very noticeably, which is why I remembered his face although we bad never yet exchanged a word.

Now he stood in the entrance of our cubicle, peering in with a gloating smirk on his repellent visage. Doubtless he had been sent to arouse us for the morning meal; however, I did not like the secretive, furtive manner in which he performed his duty. And anger awoke within me at the way he stood leering in on our privacy, running his eyes over Niamh’s sleeping loveliness and her long bare legs, his gaze lingering on the glimpses of creamy flesh which showed through the rents and tears in her abbreviated garments. So I kicked him in the face!

The action was a purely instinctive one, performed without forethought, a mere lashing out at something which annoyed me. I had not really meant to kick him at all, just to shove him away, and had my bands been free at the moment, I would doubtless have used them. But they were not, and hence it was my foot that went crashing into his ugly, smirking visage and sent him sprawling.

A roar of amusement rang out as the hunched, sidling little thief crashed, squalling, into the tables. He was on his feet in an instant, eyes agleam with malice, a wicked hooked knife clutched in one hand. He snarled, spitting curses, face vicious, for all the world like a cat dunked suddenly in cold water.

I sprang from the bed as he lunged at me, the knife blade flashing in his hand. On Earth my knowledge of the tricks of rough-and-tumble fighting had necessarily been limited to what I had read in books or watched on television; but the body of Lord Chong knew all about gutter brawls, and instinctive habit patterns snapped into action.

I knocked his knife-hand aside, blocking his lunge with the blunt edge of my forearm, and sank my balled fist into his abdomen. The breath whistled from between his yellow snagged teeth. His face paled to a sickly hue and be sank to his knees and crouched there, gagging and sucking for breath. The fight had suddenly gone out of him from that one blow of mine, and as I bent to pick up the wicked

little knife that he had let fall from numb, nerveless fingers ‘paralyzed by my blocking blow, I reflected yet again on the obvious benefits of possessing the body of a fighting man, a body with superbly trained, hair-trigger refiexesl

In the next instant, burly Yurgon stepped between us, plucking Sligon from the ground by the scruff of his neck and shoving him away, turning stern eyes on me-stern, that is, if you discounted the appreciative grin that tugged at the corners of his mouth.

“No fighting, you two!” he snapped. “Siona’s rule any further trouble between the two of you and I’ll have you both flogged. Is that understood?”

I nodded. “Perfectly! But it should also be understood that if yonder fellow or anyone else comes slinking around to peer through the curtains at the prin-at my mate and myself-he will get another boot in the teeth, flogging or no flogging. I hope that is understood!”

Yurgon chuckled. “Aye, Champion! Sligon, you sneak, stay away from our guests from now on, or I’ll give you the boot myself, understand?”

The little weasel of a man nodded silently, eyes vicious, saying nothing. I tossed him his knife and turned on my heel to where Niamh crouched in the doorway of the sleeping cubicle, flushed and bewildered, not understanding the reason for’ this altercation.

I assumed the incident was closed, and put it out of my mind. But as the little thief turned to slink away, he shot one glance at me from scowling eyes. It was a shaft of pure scarlet hatred, that glance, and I would have done well not to have discounted it. However, I paid it and him no particular heed, and therein, as shall ere long be seen, lay my downfall and Niamh’s doom. On such slight accidents do the hinges of destiny turn.

Siona, who slept with the unwed women in another part of the keep, had missed the altercation and no one bothered to inform her of it. When she appeared for the morning meal she noticed the sorry condition of our garments, which by now had been reduced to mere rags hardly sufficient to conceal our modesty, and curtly bade one of the foresters to find us more fitting raiment.

After breakfast, the huntsman commanded to this duty

conducted us to the storerooms and saw us outfitted properly.

The fellow in question, by the way, was a fresh-faced, eager young lad named Kaorn, who seemed to be about sixteen or seventeen as far as I could judge-which was not very far, as the age of the Laonese people and their average life span remains something of a mystery to me to this very hour. I have not yet had occasion to touch upon the mystery of time on the World of the Green Star thus far in the course of this narrative, but if my reader will permit a slight digression at this point, while Niamh and I are getting dressed, I will mention that there was something peculiar and extraordinary about time on this planet.

The passage of time went largely unmarked among the Laonese, and even in their conversation they hardly ever referred to it. Among my own people, it is very common to employ such words as day and night, hour and minuteall of which, of course, refer to minor time divisions commonly, indeed universally, understood. “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” we are accustomed to saying; or “I spoke to him only an hour ago,” or “I called him last week.” Virtually every action and activity undertaken by us in our everyday lives is performed against, or rather within, a framework of reference to time.

This is, most mysteriously, not at all the case with the slender, ivory-skinned inhabitants of the World of the Green Star. Such familiar time references ate almost wholly absent from their speech as from their way of thinking, although this fact is not at once noticeable and took me quite some time to become aware of. When I did begin to notice it I believe I put it down to two facts. The first of these facts is that the Laonese people are of a pre-industrial civilization which has not yet reached the level of technology appropriate to the invention of clocks. Without possessing clocks, or some kind of device to measure the passage of time, it is understandable that references to hours and minutes would be highly arbitrary and unlikely-a fact generally overlooked by the authors of popular historical novels.

The second fact is, simply, that the Laonese rarely observe their sun. Both their sun and the various stars and constellations are generally hidden behind the dome of pearly mists that veil the heavens from their view as

effectively as if they were inhabitants of the planet Venus. On Earth, of course, the sun is continuously visible throughout the daylight hours, and its passage from dawn to dusk easily observed. But the Green Star that is the sun of this world can scarcely be seen through the clouds that cover the skies, and although it is even then dimly visible as a center of brightness, the heavy leafage and immense branches wherein the folk of this world commonly dwell further obscure their notice of it.

But above and beyond the fact that the Laonese seldom refer to time by its subtler divisions-their language lacking even the words for hour or minute-they make no reference to the seasons of the year, and seldom refer even to the passage of the years. Unfortunately, my stay on the World of the Green Star was far too brief for me to have observed the passage of the seasons, but it may well have been that this planet is not so severely inclined upon its axis for the differences in temperature between the seasons to be particularly noticeable. I am left with the feeling that the Laonese dwell in a world of perpetual summer, verging, it may be, on the beginnings of autumn.

At any rate, during the time I lived among them, the Laonese seldom referred to years in any sense and for any purpose. I believe that I have already mentioned how difficult it was to estimate the age of some of the individuals whom I encountered during my stay on this strange and alien planet. Khin-nom, the old sage of Niamh’s court who taught me the language spoken by the Laonese, was an example of this. He was clearly a man of more than mature years, lean and gaunt and bewhiskered, his keen eyes and measured tones indicative of long experience and deep thought. But I would be at a loss to guess his age, for the flesh of his face was firm and healthy and unlined, his step vigorous and not in the least halting, and his body preserved the elasticity and suppleness of youth.

I wonder if it is due to the fact that their sun is not easily visible and that the giant trees about them show little change with the passage of the seasons, that the Laonese have no clearly formed conception of time, never think about it, and thus, not being aware of the passing of years, remain somehow oblivious to the effects of age? Is it possible that if a person is oblivious to the passing of years he retains the health and vigor of his youth even into well-advanced old age? Is it possible that for a mind

totally ignorant of time to enjoy something closely resembling perpetual youth?

I do not know; I cannot say. This is a question for the philosophers to ponder over, and I am a man of action, not a philosopher.

Before long young Kaorn had us outfitted in the garb of the forest outlaws. I was given a supple, thigh-length tunic of some soft leathery stuff with a nap on it like suede, together with short boots, a heavy leathern girdle, short cloak, and leggings. Niamh reappeared looking for all the world like Maid Marian in a Robin Hood movie, with an abbreviated and tight-fitting jupon of forest green, soft high-laced buskins, and a feathered cap which perched winsomely atop her silken mane. She looked completely adorable, although I was too tongue-tied -to say so. Kaorn, less inhibited .than I, grinned in appreciation, eyes shining with boyish adoration. Niamh dimpled at the expression on the boy’s face as she pirouetted before us in her new raiment.

We rejoined the others, and, looking about, I spotted Sligon at a far corner of the hall, huddled spitefully on the end of a bench, pointedly ignoring us. My flash of temper had long since subsided and I would willingly have healed the breach between the little thief and myself, but beyond shooting me one vicious glare, he ignored me therewith, turning his back on me, and it would have been awkward for me to have made any friendly overture.

Obviously, he nursed a grudge against me. With a slight sinking feeling, I realized that I had made an enemy.

An enemy who would neither forget-nor forgive.