He made a profound bow, clicking his heels together like a Nazi officer in a World War II movie.
"My dear Princess! I bid you welcome to the flag frigate Skygulclass="underline" its crew and officers are your servants to command. As for Thuton, Prince of Zanadar, who stands before you, he is―your slave!"
It was, I must admit, a pretty speech. Then why did my blood boil as I saw the half-smile Darloona turned on this smooth-faced Sky Pirate, and the gratitude in her voice as she thanked him for his courtesy?
As for myself, I was fighting mad. I came to my feet, kicking out of the lasso, ready for blood.
"We don't need your help!" I yelled. "We were doing just fine! I am returning Darloona to her people, and can get along on my own."
Prince Thuton elevated a polite eyebrow at me.
"And who is this . . . person?" he inquired.
The girl cast me a reproving look. Then, disdainfully, "Some nameless barbarian, a slave of the Yathoon. Please pay no attention to his hasty words ―he is very rude and has no conception of civilized behavior."
"So? A turn at the wheels will teach him better manners. Come, dear Princess: I have prepared a light buffet in my cabin―toasted biscuits and a light wine, spiced meat cubes and a scrap of salad―nothing fancy."
You are too kind, Prince Thuton," she murmured. He offered his arm and they turned to go, ignoring poor Koja and myself.
"Don't go with him, Darloona!" I fumed. "Don't listen to him! You know what Koja said―he has some political motive in wanting to capture you―"
Thuton turned a stern eye on me. Darloona flushed indignantly.
"Silence, you―you―amatar!" she snapped. "If you are not capable of feeling gratitude to a noble gentleman who has just rescued you from the perils of the trackless jungle, at least refrain from the insult of openly impugning his motives."
"Presently this fellow will grow tiresome, and I fear I shall have to teach him his place," Thuton purred, an ominous note in his suave voice.
Koja plucked at my arm, but I shrugged him off bad-temperedly.
"Anytime you feel like giving me a lesson, Prince!"
He stopped, turned, and stood with arms akimbo, looking me up and down. In what seemed a deliberately insulting way, his eyes lingered on the amatar glyphs painted across my chest.
"I am hardly accustomed to being insulted on my own deck," he said. "Presently, I fear Thuton of Zanadar must instruct you in the maintenance of your temper, fellow!"
"Jandar of-of-of Thanator is ready whenever you are!" I blustered, chest heaving with the intensity of my emotion. He elevated a polite eyebrow again.
"Really, my dear Princess, this barbarian is absurd! Now he takes all the world for his domain!"
Suddenly he was hard as steel. "Will swords suffice you, my peppery savage?"
"They will indeed!"
I had snatched up one of the whip-swords during my flight from the Yathoon camp. I had slung it across my back. Now I dragged it forth and flourished it, albeit a bit awkwardly, due to the shackles with which my wrists were still bound. Prince Thuton noticed this and called for his blacksmith, who swiftly released me from my bonds.
The Princess of Shondakor regarded me doubtfully. "You will not, I trust, kill him, my lord? The lout did, after all, rescue me from the Yathoon camp―for all that he was the cause I was there in the first place!"
The Prince bowed, saluting with a flicker of his blade.
"Dear Princess, his life is yours―I but wish to tutor him in his manners." Then, turning to me: "Ready, barbarian?"
I grunted and set my stance. I was well aware that this was a serious mistake; I was acting foolishly, even dangerously. This suave and agile Pirate was going to do his best to make me look like a buffoon―and I so desperately wanted to correct the bad impression that Darloona had formed of me. I cursed under my breath, and wished I had kept my temper and held my tongue.
But it was too late now. I consoled myself by recalling my prowess with the sword. I had been an excellent fencer at Yale, and there was a good chance my skill with the blade could turn the tables on this wily Prince. With luck, I might make him look the fool!
We set to it, blades clicking, steel ringing, feeling each other out. Very soon I was puffing for breath, streaming sweat from every pore, my forearms tense and quivering with strain and fatigue. I had been very, very foolish in stumbling into this quarrel. I had not stopped to think that I had passed the whole of last night standing up, my arms shackled to the tent pole. Not only was I close to exhaustion, but the muscles in my arms and shoulders were lame and aching.
Then again the whip-sword was a weapon with which I lacked training and experience. My battle with the vastodon should have shown me that I was making a dangerous error in attempting to duel with the heavy, cumbersome weapon. The flexive blade was all of five feet long and difficult for me to employ, while Thuton used a light, supple rapier that looked very much like the standard fencing Epee. His agile, flickering point was everywhere―teasing my cheek, nicking my shoulder, drawing a crimson scratch first on this arm and then the other. He pranced lightly about the deck, while I shuffled heavy-footed and wearily. His men began to snicker. Koja looked as doleful as it is possible for a Yathoon to look.
Well, I shall not dwell on the scene. The memory is painful enough. Suffice it to say that Thuton made me look like a fumbling clown, an oaf of the dullest water. He played with me like a cat with a mouse, but with amusement, not viciousness. He could have cut me to ribbons, but he was in a great good humor, with a beautiful girl for an admiring audience, and he was content to nick me and scratch me and draw me in blundering circles and, for the final coup de grace, to sever the waistband of my loincloth with a flick of the wrist. I had to drop my sword in order to preserve what little of my dignity was left.
He left me standing there, flushed crimson, furious, ludicrously shielding my nakedness, streaming with smeared blood and sweat.
Tossing his blade to the bosun, delicately wiping his brow with a perfumed bunch of ribbons, he turned, offering his arm to the Princess. She gave me a look of genuine contempt and went with him.
All in all, it had not been a very successful day.
Koja and I were sent to work at the wheels, while Darloona enjoyed the trip in a luxurious cabin.
The Sky Pirates are a rough lot, but not unkindly in a gruff way. A fellow named Gomar was put in charge of us, a bluff and hearty old seadog―or skydog, I suppose―with a scarlet kerchief knotted about his brows and a bush of inky beard that made him look like something out of The Pirates of Penzance. He let me sponge off in a trough of cold water, dug out a ragged kilt, clean loincloth, and a sort of open vest of repulsively orange felt adorned with copper disks. I felt like a stage gypsy in this getup, but I did not protest. Koja and I were given food, some sour ale, and I was permitted to rest before taking the wheel.
These wheels are enormous flat gears of hardwood set laterally about three and a half feet from the deck, and they are located in the main belowdecks compartment. There are fifty of them, stacked one above the other, with little catwalks and platforms in layers. The rims of the wheels are studded with handles and there is a slave at every handle. They walk about the outside of their wheel, pushing forward, and it is these wheels that supply the motive power which makes the enormous wings―or vans, more properly―flap.
It took us about a week, this cruise. And I was chained to my wheel for all the world like a galley slave out of some Errol Flynn epic of the Spanish Main. I don't think that Darloona realized Koja and I had been chained to the wheel―I suspect her oily―tongued host glibly said we had been given servile shipboard duties commensurate to our social level, or words to that effect.