Glory Road (14 page)

Star rode ahead, she hadn’t spoken another word. I tried to speak to her but Rufo touched my arm. “Boss, don’t,” he said quietly. “When
She
is like this, all you can do is wait.”

Once we were underway, Rufo and I knee to knee and Star out of earshot ahead, I said “Rufo, what in the world happened?”

He frowned. “We’ll never know.
She
and the Doral had a row, that’s clear. But best we pretend it never happened.”

He shut up and so did I. Had Jocko been obnoxious to Star? Drunk he certainly was and amorous he might have been. But I couldn’t visualize Star not being able to handle a man so as to avoid rape without hurting his feelings.

That led to further grim thoughts. If the older sister had come in alone—If Miss Tiffany hadn’t passed out—If my valette with the fiery hair had showed up to undress me as I had understood she would—Oh hell!

Presently Rufo eased his seat belt, lowered his back rest and raised his foot rests to reclining position, covered his face with a kerchief and started to snore. After a while I did the same; it had been a short night, no breakfast, and I had a king-size hangover. My “horse” didn’t need any help; the two held position on Star’s mount.

When I woke I felt better, aside from hunger and thirst. Rufo was still sleeping; Star’s steed was still fifty paces ahead. The countryside was still lush, and ahead perhaps a half-mile was a house—not a lordly manor out a farmhouse. I could see a well sweep and thought of moss-covered buckets, cool and wet and reeking of typhoid—well, I had had my booster shots in Heidelberg; I wanted a drink. Water, I mean. Better yet, beer—they made fine beer hereabouts.

Rufo yawned, put away his kerchief, and raised his seat. “Must have dozed off,” he said with a silly grin.

“Rufo, you see that house?”

“Yes. What about it?”

“Lunch, that’s what. I’ve gone far enough on an empty stomach. And I’m so thirsty that I could squeeze a stone and drink the whey from it.”

“Then best you do so.”

“Huh?”

“Milord, I’m sorry—I’m thirsty, too—but we aren’t stopping there.
She
wouldn’t like it.”

“She wouldn’t, eh? Rufo, let me set you straight. Just because milady Star is in a pet is no reason for me to ride all day with no food or water. You do as you see fit; I’m stopping for lunch. Uh, do you have any money on you? Local money?”

He shook his head. “You don’t do it that way, not here. Boss. Wait another hour. Please.”

“Why?”

“Because we are still on the Doral’s land, that’s why. I don’t know that he has sent word ahead to have us shot on sight; Jock is a goodhearted old blackguard. But I would rather be wearing full armor; a flight of arrows wouldn’t surprise me. Or a drop net just as we turned in among those trees.”

“You really think so?”

“Depends on how angry he is. I mind once, when a man
really
offended him, the Doral had this poor rube stripped down and tied by his family jewels and placed—no, I can’t tell that one.” Rufo gulped and looked sick. “Big night last night. I’m not myself. Better we speak of pleasant things. You mentioned squeezing whey from a rock. No doubt you were thinking of the Strong Muldoon?”

“Damn it, don’t change the subject!” My head was throbbing. “I won’t ride under those trees and the man who lets fly a shaft at me had better check his own skin for punctures. I’m thirsty.”

“Boss,” Rufo pleaded. “
She
will neither eat nor drink on the Doral’s land—even if they begged her to. And
She’s
right. You don’t know the customs. Here one accepts what is freely given…but even a child is too proud to touch anything begrudged. Five miles more. Can’t the hero who killed Igli before breakfast hold out another five miles?”

“Well…all right, all right! But this is a crazy sort of country, you must admit. Utterly insane.”

“Mmmm…” he answered. “Have you ever been in Washington, D.C.?”

“Well—” I grinned wryly. “
Touché!
And I forgot that this is your native land. No offense intended.”

“Oh, but it’s not. What made you think so?”

“Why—” I tried to think. Neither Rufo nor Star had said so, but—“You know the customs, you speak the language like a native.”

“Milord Oscar, I’ve forgotten how many languages I speak. When I hear one of them, I speak it.”

“Well, you’re not an American. Nor a Frenchman, I think.”

He grinned merrily. “I could show you birth certificates from both countries—or could until we lost our baggage. But, no, I’m not from Earth.”

“Then where are you from?”

Rufo hesitated. “Best you get your facts from
Her
.”

“Tripe! I’ve got both feet hobbled and a sack over my head. This is ridiculous.”

“Boss,” he said earnestly, “She will answer any question you ask. But you must ask them.”

“I certainly shall!”

“So let’s speak of other matters. You mentioned the Strong Muldoon—”

“
You
mentioned him.”

“Well, perhaps I did. I never met Muldoon myself, though I’ve been in that part of Ireland. A fine country and the only really logical people on Earth. Facts won’t sway them in the face of higher truth. An admirable people. I heard of Muldoon from one of my uncles, a truthful man who for many years was a ghostwriter of political speeches. But at this time, due to a mischance while writing speeches for rival candidates, he was enjoying a vacation as a free-lance correspondent for an American syndicate specializing in Sunday feature stories. He heard of the Strong Muldoon and tracked him down, taking train from Dublin, then a local bus, and at last Shank’s Mares. He encountered a man plowing a field with a one-horse plow…but this man was shoving the plow ahead of himself without benefit of horse, turning a neat eight-inch furrow. ‘Aha!’ said my uncle and called out, ‘Mr. Muldoon!’

“The farmer stopped and called back, ‘Bless you for the mistake, friend!’—picked up the plow in one hand, pointed with it and said, ‘You’ll be finding Muldoon that way. Strong, he is.’

“So my uncle thanked him and went on until he found another man setting out fence posts by shoving them into the ground with his bare hand…and in stony soil, it’s true. So again my uncle hailed him as Muldoon.

“The man was so startled he dropped the ten or dozen six-inch posts he had tucked under the other arm. ‘Get along with your blarney, now!’ he called back. ‘You must know that Muldoon lives farther on down this very same road. He’s
strong
.’

“The next local my uncle saw was building a stone fence. Dry-stone work it was and very neat. This man was trimming the rock without hammer or trowel, splitting them with the edge of his hand and doing the fine trim by pinching off bits with his fingers. So again my uncle addressed a man by that glorious name.

“The man started to speak but his throat was dry from all that stone dust; his voice failed him. So he grabbed up a large rock, squeezed it the way you squeezed Igli—forced water out of it as if it had been a goatskin, drank. Then he said, ‘Not me, my friend. He’s
strong
, as everyone knows. Why, many is the time that I have seen him insert his little finger—’”

My mind was distracted from this string of lies by a wench pitching hay just across the ditch from the road. She had remarkable pectoral muscles and a lava-lava just suited her. She saw me eyeing her and gave me the eye right back, with a wiggle tossed in.

“You were saying?” I asked.

“Eh? ‘—just to the first joint…and hold himself at arm’s length for
hours!
”

“Rufo,” I said, “I don’t believe it could have been more than a few minutes. Strain on the tissues, and so forth.”

“Boss,” he answered in a hurt tone, “I could take you to the very spot where the Mighty Dugan used to perform this stunt.”

“You said his name was Muldoon.”

“He was a Dugan on his mother’s side, very proud of her he was. You’ll be pleased to know, milord, that the boundary of the Doral’s land is now in sight. Lunch in minutes only.”

“I can use it. With a gallon of anything, even water.”

“Passed by acclamation. Truthfully, milord, I’m not at my best today. I need food and drink and a long siesta before the fighting starts, or I’ll yawn when I should parry. Too large a night.”

“I didn’t see you at the banquet.”

“I was there in spirit. In the kitchen the food is hotter, the choice is better, and the company less formal. But I had no intention of making a night of it. Early to bed is my motto. Moderation in all things. Epictetus. But the pastry cook—well, she reminds me of another girl I once knew, my partner in a legitimate business, smuggling. But
her
motto was that anything worth doing at all is worth overdoing—and she did. She smuggled on top of smuggling, a sideline of her own unmentioned to me and not taken into account—for I was listing every item with the customs officers, a copy with the bribe, so that they would know I was honest.

“But a girl can’t walk through the gates fat as a stuffed goose and walk back through them twenty minutes later skinny as the figure one—not that she was, just a manner of speaking—without causing thoughtful glances. If it hadn’t been for the strange thing the dog did in the night, the busies would have nabbed us.”

“What was the strange thing the dog did in the night?”

“Just what I was doing last night. The noise woke us and we were out over the roof and free, but with nothing to show for six months’ hard work but skinned knees. But that pastry cook—You saw her, milord. Brown hair, blue eyes, a widow’s peak and the rest remarkably like Sophia Loren.”

“I have a vague memory of someone like that.”

“Then you didn’t see her, there is nothing vague about Nalia. As may be, I had intended to lead the life sanitary last night, knowing that there would be bloodshed today. You know:

“—as the Scholar advised. But I hadn’t reckoned with Nalia. So here I am with no sleep and no breakfast and if I’m dead before nightfall in a pool of my own blood, it’ll be partly Nalia’s doing.”

“I’ll shave your corpse, Rufo; that’s a promise.” We had passed the marker into the next county but Star didn’t slow down. “Bye the bye, where did you learn the undertaker’s trade?”

“The what? Oh! That was a far place indeed. The top of that rise, behind those trees, is a house and that’s where we’ll be having lunch. Nice people.”

“Good!” The thought of lunch was a bright spot as I was again regretting my Boy Scout behavior of the night before. “Rufo, you had it all wrong about the strange thing the dog did in the night.”

“Milord?”

“The dog did nothing in the night, that was the strange thing.”

“Well, it certainly didn’t
sound
that way,” Rufo said doubtfully.

“Another dog, another far place. Sorry. What I started to say was: A funny thing happened to me on the way to bed last night—and I
did
lead the life sanitary.”

“Indeed, milord?”

“In deed, if not in thought.” I needed to tell somebody and Rufo was the sort of scoundrel I could trust. I told him the Story of the Three Bares.

“I should have risked it,” I concluded. “And, swelp me, I would have, if that lad had been put to bed—alone—when she should have been. Or I think I would have, regardless of White Shotgun or jumping out windows. Rufo, why do the prettiest gals always have fathers or husbands? But I tell you the truth, there they were—the Big Bare, the Middle-Sized Bare, and the Littlest Bare, close enough to touch and all of them anxious to keep my bed warm—and I didn’t do a damn thing! Go ahead and laugh. I deserve it.”

He didn’t laugh. I turned to look at him and his expression was piteous. “Milord! Oscar my comrade!
Tell me it isn’t true!
”

“It is true,” I said huffily. “And I regretted it at once. Too late. And
you
complained about
your
night!”

“
Oh, my God!
” He threw his mount into high gear and took off. Ars Longa looked back inquiringly over her shoulder, then continued on.

Rufo caught up with Star; they stopped, short of the house where lunch was to be expected. They waited and I joined them. Star was wearing no expression; Rufo looked unbearably embarrassed.

Star said, “Rufo, go beg lunch for us. Fetch it here. I would speak with milord alone.”

“Yes, milady!” He got out fast.

Star said to me, still with no expression, “Milord Hero, is this true? What your groom reports to me?”

“I don’t know what he reported.”

“It concerned your failure—your alleged failure—last night.”

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘failure.’ If you want to know what I did after the banquet… I slept alone. Period.”

She sighed but her expression did not change. “I wanted to hear it from your lips. To be just.” Then her expression did change and I have never seen such anger. In a low almost passionless voice she began chewing me out:

“You hero. You incredible butter-brained dolt. Clumsy, bumbling, loutish, pimple-peeked, underdone, over-muscled, idiotic—”

“
Stop it!
”

“Quiet, I am not finished with you. Insulting three innocent ladies offending a staunch—”

“
SHUT UP!!!
”

The blast blew her hair back. I started in before she could rev up again. “Don’t ever again speak to me that way. Star. Never.”

“But—”

“Hold your tongue, you bad-tempered brat! You have not earned the right to speak to me that way. Nor will any girl ever earn the right. You will always—
always!
—address me politely and with respect. One more word of your nasty rudeness and I’ll spank you until the tears fly.”

“You wouldn’t
dare!
”

“Get your hand away from that sword or I’ll take it away from you, down your pants right here on the road, and spank you with
it
. Till your arse is red and you beg for mercy. Star, I do not fight females—but I do punish naughty children. Ladies I treat as ladies. Spoiled brats I treat as spoiled brats. Star, you could be the Queen of England and the Galactic Overlord all rolled into one—but ONE MORE WORD out of line from you, and down come your tights and you won’t be able to sit for a week. Understand me?”