‘If he calls me a “pretty little thing” I swear I’ll kick him in the nuts, Polly snarled.
Finally dragging his gaze from Polly’s breasts, the monarch glanced over his shoulder. ‘Cromwell?’
A bulky man, who, amongst all this noble finery, appeared like an obese vulture, stepped from the respectful position he had held a pace back from the King. ‘No doubt a new member of Berthold’s troupe, my prince.’ Thomas Cromwell then turned to Berthold. ‘What say you, fool?’
‘The Lady Poliasta has only recently joined us on our journey of entertainment and joy, my lord. She came to us from the Far East and knows many of the wiles and diversions of the Orient.’
‘I shall be glad to know more of them, I think,’ said Henry, his gaze once again resting on Polly’s bust.
Well, they do say yours is the oldest profession.
‘One I no longer intend to pursue,’ Polly subvocalized angrily.
The King released her chin and moved on. ‘One ryal, I should think, for this brief entertainment, Cromwell?’
The Earl of Essex delved into his pouch and passed a coin across to Berthold. As the entertainer took it and bowed, Cromwell frowned at him briefly before moving on after the King. Soon the entire group of nobles had departed in the direction of the house.
‘I’ll show you where you may encamp, then where you may break your fast,’ advised the captain, who was holding his dagger and eyeing it speculatively. ‘And tonight you will be most careful with any dagger you might use, else you might find yourself juggling with the sharp end of a crossbow bolt.’
Still gazing with reverence at the coin resting in his grubby palm, Berthold did not even hear the threat.
Her arm was charred to the bone and on that side of her body the skin of her neck was severely blistered and leaking plasma. Her male comrade thrust his hands into their mantisal’s inner eyes and the creature violently shifted through colourless void. Making small whimpering sounds, the woman pulled a flat oval of metal from the pouch on her belt, and pressed the object against her neck burns. Immediately she sighed with relief and relaxed, before more closely studying her damaged arm. After a moment she abruptly thrust it outside the confines of the mantisal’s glassy structure, and from it a contrail of red cut across the colourless space. When she pulled back, the entire charred portion of her arm was gone, right up to her biceps.
The two of them now conferred, and Tack understood none of it. All he imagined was that they were a greater danger to him than Traveller.
‘Where are you taking me?’ he hazarded asking.
The man glared at him. ‘What is your name, primitive?’
‘Tack.’
‘Well, Tack, I am called Coptic and my partner is Meelan. Now, with those introductions over, you will remain silent until we directly address you. Any disobedience will be punished severely.’
Tack nodded, his mouth clamped shut.
As Coptic and Meelan returned to their conversation, it swiftly devolved into an argument in which Coptic apparently prevailed. A moment later, reality crept back in all around them. With warm drizzle misting all the mantisal’s surfaces, thick subtropical greenery came into view below a leaden sky, forest reared to one side, and an inky lake spread on the other. In the forest some large beast issued a deep booming bark, and this seemed to decide Coptic, who was already gazing out at the damp vista with distaste. This reality jerked away as the mantisal turned back into the between space. Then, after a second, another one folded into place.
Once again they were beside a lake, but now the sky was a clear amethyst dotted with dawn stars and the moon was ascending. There was no forest, just dense greenery covering the ground below the black skeletons of trees. This vista stretched away into shadow for as far as Tack could see, only relieved by the occasional stone outcrop. Greenery also extended across much of the lake’s surface, in the form of huge lily pads centre-nailed by blowsy yellow flowers.
‘Out,’ Coptic ordered.
Tack did not hesitate, moving to a gap in the mantisal’s structure and dropping to the ground. Immediately he found himself up to his chest in vegetation, and his skin crawled when he heard an insectile scuttling near his feet. Looking towards the lake, he saw the reflected glitter of eyes from bulky shapes resting in the water, and it occurred to him that his seeker gun might now be a million years away from him.
Coptic and Meelan disembarked together, then the mantisal floated higher like some strange and gigantic Christmas decoration, before turning itself out of that world.
‘You go there, ahead of us,’ Coptic told Tack, gesturing towards one of the rocky outcrops, then turning to pick up Meelan and following as Tack forged a path. Glancing back again at the water, with his eyes adjusting to the the dearth of light, Tack saw that the wallowing creatures resembled hornless rhino, and were grazing on the plentiful waterweed. That they plainly weren’t carnivorous was no comfort, since the deinotherium they had earlier encountered had been a herbivore. Obviously a vegetarian diet did not necessarily guarantee an even temper or a convivial nature.
‘Just watch where you’re going,’ said Coptic. ‘Moeritherium are only dangerous if you get between them and the water — they’ll not come out of there after you.’
Moeritherium?
Tack wanted to know how these two had so quickly acquired his language, to the extent that they could easily name varieties of prehistoric beast in it. And he wanted to know what they intended for him—and if he might survive it. Soon he reached the edge of the vegetation and climbed up onto an expanse of mossy stone. Coptic followed him, setting the incapacitated Meelan down on her feet again, then shed the pack he was wearing and opened it up. Tack noted that its contents were much the same as Traveller’s, and guessed they must derive from the same time.
Coptic removed a heat-sheet sleeping bag and unrolled it over a level area coated in a thick blanket of dark green moss. Without a word, Meelan climbed inside the bag. Once she was comfortable, Coptic keyed a control on the oval object attached to her throat. She sighed and instantly lost consciousness. Coptic now took a box from his pack and, with the various implements it contained, set to work on Meelan’s injuries. Squatting nearby, Tack watched the big man trim back her arm stump until he reached white bone and bleeding flesh. A pumping artery he closed with a small clip, before sealing the whole stump under some sort of spray-on dressing that set in a hard white nub. The other lesser-degree burns running from the arm up to her neck, he now revealed by cutting away her clothing, then he covered the area with another spray that set in a pink skin. Finally satisfied with his work, he rocked back on his heels and gazed at her intently.
It struck Tack that Coptic was contemptuous of him, for during this entire procedure the man had not looked round once. But judging by the man’s abilities, perhaps he had that right. Tack turned away and stared towards the imminent sunrise.
Abruptly Coptic swivelled, stood, and walked over to him. ‘Come with me.’
He led the way to a jut of crystalline stone rising a couple of metres high at the end of the outcrop and, gripping him by one shoulder, pulled Tack up beside him so they both stood before this glittering face. Coptic then reached out and pressed the flat of his hand against the surface, which immediately took on a strange translucence. Something like a tangle of tubes—some complex mechanism—came out from the depths of stone and seemed to bond to Coptic’s hand. Then slowly a face became visible behind this—a woman bearing characteristics similar to those of Traveller and both Tack’s kidnappers. She spoke, obviously angry as she berated Coptic in their staccato language.