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9
A Midsummer
Night's Dream

Several hours' sail to the north was an islet, high and steep, its barren slopes populated only by seabirds. Behind it lay anchored the ships of Olaghi. Their presence was unlikely to be discovered; should a fishing vessel chance by, it could be captured. The flotilla was no larger than that which Dzenko had led to Belogh. The bulk of the king's far-flung navy must still be on its way to join him here.

His flagship was twice as big, complex, and formidable as any other vessel Charlie had seen on New Lemuria. Besides sails, it boasted a treadmill motor, which turned not paddle wheels but a propeller. Cannon muzzles bristled from double rows of ports. The main deck was broad and unencumbered, with the two masts set far forward and aft. Thus a wheelhouse on the poop overlooked a wide flat surface where six curious objects rested. Though their wicker bodies were almost hidden by furled fabric, Charlie decided they must be lighter-than-air flying craft. He got that idea from a captive balloon bobbing astern at the end of a long Jacob's ladder, a sphere with a basket where a lookout kept watch.

As he climbed aboard, disguised in a hooded cloak, he encountered warriors. They mostly resembled Dzenko's force, scantily equipped commoners. Very few could have been volunteers, to judge from the way their officers cursed, struck, and kicked them for the least reason. The sailors fared still worse. Most of those wore merely loincloths, and Charlie saw marks of the lash on more than one back. He witnessed a mate club a pair with a belaying pin when they stopped work for a moment's wonder at sight of Hector.

"Are they really forced into service?" he asked the chief of his kidnappers.

"Yes, scum that they are," the other replied. "Would you believe, instead of being grateful for a chance to die for our beloved Olaghi, they'll often as not try to hide from his recruiters? Caught, they'll whine about their families going hungry without them to bring in food. Liars, every last wretch of them. I've personally ransacked the cottages of some and found stuff that could be sold to buy groceries for months. Good, warm clothing, well-made tools, dishes, furniture, things like that. My wife's going to rejoice."

"You mean the king's men rob his own people?"

"Watch your language," huffed the native. "Fines, that's what we collect, fines levied on a bunch of draft dodgers." He glowered. "Not that we'd have had to draft many, if your gang of traitors hadn't started this trouble. March along."

Hector bristled to see Charlie hustled sternward. The boy frantically signaled the Hoka to keep quiet. They were surrounded by sharpened steel.

A door in the poop led to a guarded entry room. Beyond, across a hall, another door gave on a cabin whose spaciousness, broad glass windows, and luxurious outfitting could only be regal. A female strummed a horpil and sang for the male who sat there otherwise alone. He made a rugged contrast. His big frame was clad simply, apart from golden necklace and bracelets. His face, while battlescarred and weather-beaten, looked fairly young. Charlie strove not to cringe beneath his hard stare. This must be Olaghi.

He jerked a thumb at the female. The speed with which she left the chamber showed how frightened she was of him. The officer saluted him and announced, "Your Majesty, we bring you the Earthling who claims to be the Prince of the Prophecy, and his, um, er, co-conspirator."

"So you've told me," Olaghi said in a deep, hoarse voice. On the way here, Charlie had seen his catcher use a miniaturized sun-battery-powered radio transceiver, and he noticed a similar unit on a table here. "Don't repeat yourself. Get back and see about the other rebel leaders."

The officer was obviously surprised that the king wished to be alone with two enemies, but saluted, and the door closed behind him and his men.

Charlie was even more astounded when Olaghi smiled and invited, "Sit down, you two. Let's talk."

"Sir?" Charlie whispered. He was quick to obey, because suddenly his knees wouldn't hold him up. Hector took a stance, arms folded, behind his chair.

"You have nothing to fear if you cooperate, that is. Of course, if you're stubborn—" Olaghi touched the knife at his waist. Yet he smiled on. "Nothing personal, understand."

"I— I—" Charlie's tongue felt drier than in the arena.

"Frankly," Olaghi drawled, "I'm more curious about this funny little attendant of yours than I am about you. I'll want details on what you've been doing, but I know the general pattern already." He drew breath. "You see, I'm not at all the kind of reactionary your Pomfrey thinks. No, I'm the most progressive ruler Talyina's had since the Founder. Look how I've been reforming our institutions—breaking down feudalism, building an up-to-date absolute monarchy. And I'm interested in modernizing material things, too. I've gotten scientific books from other planets, and my engineers are designing cannon, shrapnel, aerial fighter-bombers, motorships that can take our armies clear across the ocean for making conquests. Yes, I mean to go down in history as the Great Civilizer." He scowled. "It'd be easier if the League would sell us what we need. As is, I've only managed to get some radio sets like this one, which was smuggled out. I've put secret agents, radio-equipped, in the less trustworthy provinces. They keep me alerted on what's happening and carry out jobs for me. Dzenko counts on weeks, while couriers go back and forth to rally my loyal supporters. In fact, they're already bound my way. Tell me," he asked chattily, "what do we suggest we do with Dzenko? I favor bronzing him—alive, of course—to keep with my children's baby shoes."

Charlie shivered. While Olaghi was brilliant in his fashion, he remained a lord of the wild marches of Nyekh, whose career grew from fighting tribesmen as savage as himself, until he concentrated his power and seized the throne.

"But don't be afraid," he repeated. "I'm aware you were only Dzenko's tools, you two. You owe him nothing. Besides, I'd much rather have the goodwill of your League than irritate it by harming you . . . unnecessarily, that is." He waved at a carafe and some crystal goblets. "Would you care for a slug of shmiriz while we talk? Or I can send after fruit juice if you want."

Heartened, Charlie related the entire tale of what, had happened since he left the compound. Olaghi listened intently, often asking a shrewd question. In an hour, the king had a full grasp of the situation.

"A-a-ah," he rumbled at last. "As I thought. Dzenko's been restless for years. I'd have done him in a long time ago, if there hadn't always been trouble elsewhere. Now he's been quick to use the happenstance that you fit the Prophecy, or, rather, he made it fit you. He's a smart devil, no denying that. But he's overreached himself. Without you for a sign to them, his followers will melt away like dawn dew. Panic, you see, when their godling fails. I shouldn't need more strength than I've already got here, to destroy the few who try to fight.

"So all we need to do, Charles Stuart, is keep you aboard for a six-day or two. Afterward I'll personally convey you home; might as well collect whatever reward may be offered. And you, why, you'll be clear as far as your League law is concerned. How's that sound? Good, ha?"

Charlie nodded. He ought to be jubilant. He was out of danger, freed of a role he had never wanted; his parents' anxieties about him would soon be relieved; meanwhile, he could relax in better quarters than any he had yet enjoyed on this ill-starred trip.

Then why did he feel miserable? Why did he keep thinking of people like Mishka, Toreg, and the impressed soldiers and sailors around him?

Olaghi did not want his men reminded of the Prophecy, which they also cherished. He decided Charlie must be confined to a cabin near his own, a comfortable one to which attendants would bring meals. Just outside its door, a companionway led from the hall up to the poop deck. That was officer country. The prisoner could visit it if he kept his red hair well covered and was accompanied by a guard.

Hector, who amused Olaghi, at first got the freedom of the ship, "provided," the king warned, "you breathe no hint of your master's identity. I'd soon know if you did, and neither of you would like what came next. Remember, I don't have to keep you alive."

"I'll be the dourest Scot ye e'er did meet," snapped the Hoka, "commencing wi' ye."

Offended or perhaps ultra-cautious, Olaghi clapped down restrictions. Hector would sleep in the forecastle, and he and Charlie must never be together.

As he stood at a rail next morning and looked across the flight deck, Charlie saw his friend pass beneath in company with a petty officer, talking. He heard: "—nay, I canna tell ye what we're aboot, save that 'tis a matter o' state secrets on the soomit level—" The Hoka broke off for a moment to shout upward in English, "Courage, lad! Stout hearts and true remain to save ye!"

Charlie didn't venture to reply. Undramatic practical politics wouldn't suit Hector MacGregor's taste. But the fact was, no matter how ruthless, Olaghi would lean backward not to harm them. He had too much to gain by returning such a distressed traveler—including a chance at more of the technology which fascinated him.

Certainly the royal engineers had accomplished marvels on the basis of what scant information they had been able to get about advanced machinery. Their most ambitious, if not quite their most successful, work thus far was the cannon. Charlie had observed the same devices aboard a few of Dzenko's craft, but in negligible numbers. Olaghi's flagship carried a full battery of them.

The League forbade the sale of explosives to warlike societies, and the Talyinan islands had no sulfur deposits for the manufacture of gunpowder, should anyone learn the formula. Hence Olaghi, early in his reign, had commissioned, the development of artillery fired by compressed air. The missiles were necessarily light—thin-walled globes full of oil ignited by a fuse or glass balls which broke on impact into showers of "shrapnel." Considering their inaccuracy and feebleness, their medieval types of counterparts remained more effective. But Olaghi hoped for gradual improvement. Charlie had watched crews at practice, ten males at once on a long lever, pumping up a gun while they sang:

What'll we do with a leaky air tank?
What'll we do with a leaky air tank?
What'll we do with a leaky air tank,
When the order's for a broadside?
Way, hay, the gauge is rising—

Both lyrics and melody suggested that somebody had once heard a visiting human translate an old Earth sea chant.

No matter how ludicrous these efforts, they showed New Lemurians to possess intelligence. What might these people accomplish if they were free to work for peaceful progress rather than a belligerent tyrant?

Moonlight faded in the cabin windows as Charlie tossed and drifted into sleep. He was slow to rouse when a soft, high-pitched voice called him. Struggling through layers of dreaming he wondered if he hadn't begun a fresh nightmare. Moonbeams struck level through shadow to pick out a figure, cloaked and cowled, beside his bunk. The garment was of a kind worn by females; there were a few aboard to serve and entertain Olaghi and his higher-ups. But this wench was so tall—

"Hist, laddie," she whispered. "Busk yoursel' and come!"

She? No. . . . The cloak dropped off to reveal Hector on the shoulders of his petty officer acquaintance. The Hoka's left hand gripped his steed by the throat; his right hand held a knife under the Talyinan's jaw.

"What?" Charlie mumbled in his daze.

"Surely ye recall Flora Macdonald, laddie," said Hector, "the fair daughter o' Clan Ranald in the Hebrides, wha aided ye to evade the English guards on Benbecula whaur ye'd ta'en refuge after Culloden. What mon o' true heart can e'er fail tae hauld sacred the memory o' Flora, wha saved her Bonnie Prince Charlie?"

"Huh?"

"O' coorse, we've nae such aboord here, and I maun eemprovise," said Hector regretfully. "I snaffled a mantle frae ane o' the lassies and later tauld this loon tae meet me in a dark place whaur he wad hear what was to his advantage. I'd sounded him oot afore and knew him for greedy. So I swarmed up his coat, seized his dirk, and stifled his yawp, the while I tauld him the steel wad dirl in his gullet did he gie trouble. Covered o'er, we walked past the sentries, who're sleepy at this hour and anyhoo could scarcely see mair in the gloom than a female on some errand. They've nobbut contempt for females and didna think tae question her, yon barbarians, wha ken naught o' Flora Macdonald."

His fist smote the base of the Talyinan's skull. The officer crumpled, not seriously hurt—his breath rattled where he lay—but switched off for a goodly time. Hector hopped clear, stuck the confiscated knife in his belt, and urged, "Noo, Prince, quick, ere they grow suspeecious."

Charlie kicked off his blanket. Bewilderment rocked his mind. Chill sidled around his bare legs. Against it, he wore a nightshirt Olaghi had given him.

"Ah, guid," Hector approved, "ye're clad as a Prince should be when escaping, namely, like Flora's maidsairvant, Betsy Burke. But let's awa'!" He swept the other up across one shoulder.

Charlie writhed, to no avail. Hector held him easily while opening the door and bounded on into the hall. No guard stood outside; a watch in the entry and one on the poop deck were deemed sufficient.

Meteoric, the Hoka traversed the companionway. Charlie glimpsed wheelhouse, waters a-sheen beneath a sinking moon, stars still bright though the east was paling. Light glimmered off the helmet and pike of an armed lookout. That male never had a chance. Before he knew anybody had arrived, Hector leaped, with a karate kick to the belly. Air whoofed from the Talyinan. He folded over. The Hoka continued on course.

"But—but wait—" Charlie stammered. Wholly awake at last, he realized in horror that he was being rescued. The ship dwindled below him as Hector shot up the rope rungs between the parallel cables which anchored the observation balloon.

The person in its basket saw what was making it bob. He bellowed an alarm. Charlie heard shouts respond from below.

A warrior on balloon duty saved weight by leaving behind armor and weapons which could be of no use, or so it had been supposed until Hector arrived. "Yo-heave-ho?" chortled the Hoka, and threw the Talyinan overside.

"Stop!" Charlie wailed. "You don't understand—"

He was too late. Hector had already cast loose the tethers. With a jerk and a sway, the balloon floated northward.

"Harroo!" exulted the Hoka. "We're on our wa', lad. Fair stands the wind for Belogh."

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Framed