After a long, deathly pause, the great ship spoke again, in a voice weary with resignation: “As you command, Grandmaster DeCade. ”
And now, at last, Dirk saw naked fear on the Lords’ faces.
Almost quietly, DeCade commanded, “Milords—throw down your swords, and step to the center of the yard, with your hands on your heads.”
An awed mutter passed through the churls, growing, gaining glee.
DeCade chopped it off. “If any churl touches a Lord who has laid down his sword, I will kill him!”
The churls were silent, shrinking back in superstitious terror.
DeCade surveyed them, and nodded. “At your pleasure, milords—now!”
Silence held the courtyard a moment longer. Dirk felt as though he were standing on the edge of a razor blade.
Then a sword rang on the cobbles, and a Lord stepped into the center of the courtyard, his hands on his head. There was a moment of waiting. Then another sword clattered down, then another and another, till the air was filled with the clatter of steel, and the Lords filed into the center of the yard, their hands clasped on their heads, sick despair on their faces. The churls pressed back, leaving room for them, eyeing the stony figure of DeCade nervously, till the center of the yard was packed with an unmoving mass of Lords, ringed in by bright steel.
A tall, broad-shouldered Tradesman elbowed his way through to stand under the balcony. Hugh. “They are all there, DeCade. No Lord remains living outside this circle.”
DeCade nodded slowly. “Take them into the great hall, and set a strong guard upon them—beginning with these.” He nodded to the ten outlaws behind him, then turned to the two who held the King. “Take him in with his fellows—and make certain none harm him.”
The outlaws nodded, almost genuflecting, their faces filled with awe, and turned away to find their way back through the castle to the great hall.
Below, Hugh was mustering his most trusted men with harsh, barking shouts. They formed two files, clearing a path between the packed Lords and the door of the keep. Then, one by one, the Lords began the long march down that gamut of churls to the keep, their backs prickling with the expectation of a sudden laser shot—but not a man touched them.
Peaceably, and in good order, the defeated Lords filed back into the King’s castle.
Then, finally, DeCade’s whole body seemed to loosen. He bowed his head, gave a long hissing sigh, and collapsed.
Dirk dropped to one knee beside the fallen giant, panic clawing at his throat. DeCade lay slumped against the wall, mouth slack, eyes closed. Dirk slapped his face lightly, quickly. “Come out of it, man! It’s all over; you won! Come on, wake up!”
DeCade’s eyes opened, staring up at Dirk—and right on through him. Suddenly his whole body stiffened, rigid as a board, muscle straining against muscle, as DeCade swung his staff high in both hands and brought it crashing down across his knee.
The broken halves of the staff fell clattering to the paving stones. The huge body relaxed, and the giant leaned forward, resting his head in his hands.
Dirk hovered over him, almost frantic, not knowing what to do. Finally he grasped the man’s shoulder, and shook him. “What’s the matter? What happened? Are you okay now? Wake up—you won!”
Slowly, then, the huge head rolled to the side, looking up at him with a queer, sad smile. “Yes, I won—but I’ve lost, too.”
Dirk looked into his eyes and felt a ghostly wind pass through him, chilling him to the marrow.
The arrogance was substantially lessened, and the eyes were no longer compelling. And the voice wasn’t as deep and harsh any more.
Dirk nodded slowly. “Welcome back, Gar.”
CHAPTER 16
The moon had risen; picking out the glints of metal and jewels in the clothing of the lordly prisoners who stood huddled together in the center of the courtyard again. High above them, Lapin sat on a jury-rigged scaffold, hands flat on her knees. Hugh and the Guildmaster stood to one side of her. Now and again, they glanced furtively at the shadows of the northwest corner, where Gar sat hunched over, staring at the broken fragments of the staff.
Dirk stood apart from both, with Captain Domigny and his officers. From time to time, he glanced at Madelon where she sat at the foot of the scaffold with Father Fletcher and several other men and women whom Dirk had never seen. He assumed they were other junior “officers” and provincial captains.
“We cannot kill so many out of hand,” Lapin said with a flat finality that left nothing open to debate. “What, then, shall we do with them?”
The Guildmaster growled, “There are some who do deserve death, Lapin—the slowest and most painful death we can devise.”
“Must we try them one by one?” Hugh demanded. “It will take a year; and, like as not, some with slick tongues will escape unscathed when they truly deserve some great punishment.”
Captain Domigny stepped forward. “If I may speak here—”
“You may not,” the Guildmaster said curtly. The Captain stared, speechless. Then he scowled and started to speak again.
Lapin turned her head slowly toward him. “Do not misunderstand, sky-man—we are grateful for all you have done. Indeed, we could have done nothing without you, and well we know it. But you have not suffered as we have suffered; most of your lives you have been free, and away from this sink of misery. You have not tried to feed a family beneath a Lord’s heavy hand; you have not seen your wife or your daughter taken for a lordling’s lust, nor your son taken to the arena. You cannot know how these things stand here, nor hove the people feel—not truly.”
“I think I might have a halfway decent idea.” Dirk’s voice crackled through the courtyard. “Just in the last week, I’ve come a hairsbreadth from death a dozen times. I’ve been in the arena. I’ve run and hidden like an outlaw. And this isn’t the first time. I’ve served seven missions on this planet, and I’ve shaved death every time. We all have. And there’s a little matter of the rest of my life—all our lives.” He gestured to his companions. “We’ve spent our lives for one thing only; to keep the line between Mélange and the rest of the universe in churl hands so that, when this day came, the Wizard’s tall towers could come dropping down from the skies. Nice, safe, easy job—crammed cheek by jowl with twenty other men in a fragile shell of a ship, floating in emptiness, where any one of a hundred tiny things could go wrong and kill us. Our dangers have been as great as yours, our trials as painful. Few of us have married—why do you think we always brought up new recruits? We knew a wife and children would divide our loyalty, and we couldn’t risk that—we devoted our lives completely and solely to someday—someday—winning your freedom! We condemned ourselves to lonely lives full of backbreaking work, for one purpose, and one purpose only—your freedom!”
“I know you have been tried, perhaps as sorely as we,” Lapin said judiciously, “but they were different trials, different pains—and, withal, you all were free.”
Dirk’s lips pressed into a thin, straight line. “Free! Never a one of us was free! We’ve been slaves to you, all of you, all our lives—and the lives of the men who came before us—for five hundred years! Working for this day—the day when the churls would be free and we could come back to our home!
“And now you tell us our home is not here for us to come back to!”
“We do.” He could hear the pain in Lapin’s voice; nevertheless, she spoke the words. “For the fact remains, you have become apart from us, Dirk Dulain, you and all the sky-men. You are no longer really of us, here. The things you want are no longer the things we want.”