Starship Home (14 page)

Once the castle had been a private research establishment owned by a chemical company specializing in agricultural products. It stood on a hill, and had, before the Slarn arrived, been surrounded by open paddocks. When the first Don and his men had ridden into the district on their motor cycles, he had chosen the building as his headquarters for several reasons: it was big, it had concrete walls, and it was on a hill with clear fields of fire in all directions. That is, it could be defended against attack.

The first Don was a remarkable man. He had left school early, and the rest of his education had come from movies, war games, science fiction pulp magazines and comic books. His Irish-Sicilian family background and these literary sources had prepared him very well for his future role in life, that of a feudal lord.

Soon after the Slarn invasion, the Trollmaster, president of the Trolls Motor Cycle Club, had lethally combined being very drunk with insulting Spider Costello once too often. In the ensuing knife fight, Spider, until that time Toastmaster and Archivist for the Trolls M.C.C., became President Elect. On his elevation, he had taken the title of Don. He had become Don Spider Costello, the first of that name. A keen student of his family’s stories of Sicilian and IRA history and of Mafia films, the Don had constructed a political system from these sources. He did not realize at the time that this system was called “feudalism”, and had originally been brought into Sicily by Norman invaders in the 11th century.

Until his death in the 2nd Battle of Torrens Bridge, the first Don had imposed and fine-tuned this system on the people of Dalrymple Ponds area, leaving his son, Don Robert, by-named The Beautiful, with a rich little duchy in very good running order.

Robert The Beautiful’s son, Spider II (by- named The Gross) had succeeded his father by assassinating him, and had in turn been killed by his own palace guard. Spider III (by-named The Nameless) had then ruled for a period before being driven into exile by his own people whereupon he in turn was succeeded by his younger brother, Robert The Bold, who now, ten years later, at the age of 30, was still the reigning Don.

It was Robert the Bold’s personal flag, a gold flaming sword thrust through a black heart against a scarlet background, which was flying on one of the two flagstaffs on Trollcastle the day Zoe, Harold and Zachary came out of the forest and had their first sight of the castle. The second flagstaff carried the Troll banner, depicting a red Troll’s head on a black ground, an exact copy of the Motor Cycle Club’s original colors.

Harold, Zoe and Zachary had noticed the forest thinning out as they came up the slope toward the old research station. The undergrowth had been burned and there was new grass beneath the trees. They began to move more carefully, but even then ran out of cover and were beyond the treeline before they knew it. Immediately, they moved back among the trees, and looked up the slope toward Trollcastle.

There it was, much as Zoe and Harold remembered it, but different. The glass doors had been replaced by solid, iron-bound wood. The flat roof now had brick walls along its edge, about chest-high and castellated so that projectile weapons could be fired with safety. There were armored men moving about on the roof.

What had been the car park now had a stone and brick wall around it, and in the wall was a gate of wooden planks reinforced with iron bands. Outside the gate, and on either side of it, two ancient motor cycles had been set up, rearing up on their back wheels like rampant heraldic beasts as if to guard the way. Though they were 200 yards from the castle, Zachary thought he recognized the cycles as Harley Davidsons. Above the main gateway there was another Troll’s head device, with writing underneath it. As they watched from cover, the gate in the wall opened, and a group of horsemen rode out. The gate immediately closed behind them. Unlike the Trolls on watch in the forest, these horsemen had their armor bright and shining. One of the horsemen did not wear armor at all, and Harold recognized him as Marlowe, the witchdoctor from the forest village.

The mounted party was heading for a road which seemed to cut through the forest some distance up to their right. ‘I want a closer look,’ said Zachary, and standing, led them in a low crouching run back into the trees, moving at a tangent which would intersect the road through the forest.

They dropped into cover just in time. The mounted party were approaching along the forest road at a gallop. They lay and watched as the Troll party passed them. In the lead was a giant warrior riding a big chestnut gelding. He wore a long hand-and-a-half sword strapped to his back, its hilt projecting over his right shoulder, a heavy battleaxe hung from his saddle and the scar which ran down one cheek did not spoil his open, rather boyish, face. Zachary guessed his age at about 35. Riding behind the giant warrior was a boy of about 14, wearing black leather under his armor. He wore no helmet and his dark curling hair was cropped close to his head. His sword was worn more conventionally in a scabbard on his belt.

Then came Marlowe, and Harold was interested to see that the older man rode as well as any of the mounted soldiers. This suggested to Harold that he had not always lived among the Foresters, who had no riding horses. Following Marlowe, and making up the rear of the party were four Trollwarriors. They passed in a drumming of hooves and a cloud of dust, and were gone.

‘If the witchdoctor’s with them, they could be going to the village,’ Zoe said.

‘Meg’s there!’ said Zachary, and they were on their feet and running.

The Wyzen was in the clearing in front of the starship trying to get acquainted with two kangaroos who were cropping at some grass. The Wyzen had tried making friends with the shy creatures earlier in the morning without success, but on that occasion, she had leapt at them in an effort to get them to play. The kangaroos had reacted to this overture of friendship by bounding off and not coming back for several hours. This time, the Wyzen was taking it more quietly, but probably would have lost patience and leapt again had it not been for the arrival of the horsemen.

For Harold, Zoe and Zachary had been mistaken. The mounted party was not going to the village at all, but to the starship. The Wyzen and the kangaroos heard the approaching horses at the same time, and took similar action, the Wyzen turning and running for the ramp of the starship and the kangaroos crashing off into the undergrowth in great bounds.

Guinevere’s sensors had also picked up the sound of the approaching horsemen, and she had been interested to hear, blended with the hoofbeats, something she had not heard for centuries: the combined sounds of the squeak of leather and the jingle of harness which told her that it was not just horses approaching but people riding horses.

As the Wyzen entered the starship on her second leap, Guinevere closed the hatch and waited. After a moment, the mounted party entered the clearing and Guinevere felt transported back to childhood. There was the village warlock Marlowe, but with him were six armored knights, the like of which she had not seen for nearly six centuries elapsed Earth time. They were led by a giant man-at-arms, possibly an old squire or a knight, and he had by him a youngster, a page, or perhaps a young squire. Four more mounted men-at-arms followed them. For a moment, Guinevere felt like singing. It was a moment of heart-warming nostalgia. The giant warrior kneed his horse forward.

‘I speak with the authority of the Don Robert Costello, lord of Damplepon, enforcer of the High Law and scourge of the ungodly,’ the giant said.

‘And thy name, good sir?’ Guinevere had always believed in good style.

‘Sir Ulf Richards, war leader to the Don.’ He looked up at the starship.
Very big
, he thought,
made of metal, very hard to burn down
. ‘Who’s in charge?’ he said.

‘I am, good knight.’

‘A woman? In charge of a castle?’

‘Hast not heard of chatelaines? In the time and place from which I come, many castles are held by women.’

‘Bad idea,’ said Ulf. ‘The Don wants you off his turf,’ he added.

‘Alas I cannot move,’ she said.

‘But,’ Ulf said, with slow, inexorable logic, ‘the Don wants you to move.’ Ulf was not enormously bright but he made up for this in his Don’s eyes by being totally loyal and able to understood and carry out simple orders if they were expressed in plain language.

‘But I cannot.’

Ulf paused to think this one through. If he could get inside, he could kidnap the woman, take her back to Trollcastle and continue this conversation in a dungeon where she might become more amenable to reason. Generally speaking he was a soft-hearted man and opposed to the torture of women, but there was a limit to the time you could prolong a conversation like this without causing a disastrous loss of morale in the lower ranks.

‘Open the door,’ he said with what he thought was extreme cunning, ‘I’ll come inside.’

‘Nay.’

That was it as far as Ulf was concerned. The time for diplomacy had just ended. He turned his horse, and spurred across the clearing away from the starship. Turning again, he galloped back toward the starship, unslung the heavy battle axe from his saddle, and began to attack the hatchway. Sparks flew, there was a noise like an iron foundry, and nothing else happened.

After a while, Ulf stopped hacking at the iron castle. ‘Don’t make me get off my horse,’ he said. He was beginning to sound dangerous.

‘Thou canst in no way enter,’ Guinevere said.

‘You just made me get off my horse,’ he said, and dismounted. He turned to the other Trolls. ‘Get a tree,’ he said. ‘A nice big tree.’

‘Can I give you some advice?’ said Marlowe.

‘When I want a sorcerer’s advice I’ll ask for it,’ said Ulf.

‘I’m sorry about this,’ Marlowe said to the starship.

‘Warlock, I cannot help thee,’ said Guinevere.

‘We shall see,’ said Marlowe.

In the village, Meg now had the girls writing letters in the dust in front of them, using pointed sticks. She walked backwards and forwards along the line, checking their work. ‘Write down big “D”, and then little “d”…’ She paused at one child. ‘You have the little “d” back to front, look at Maze’s. Big “E”, little “e”…’

Zoe, Harold and Zachary panted into the village, looking around wildly for the Trolls.

‘Party of horsemen,’ panted Zoe, ‘from the castle!’

‘Got the village wizard with them,’ added Harold.

‘You okay?’ Zachary managed to get out. He was either going to get very fit in this place, he thought, or else die of cardiac arrest.

‘I’m perfectly all right,’ said Meg. ‘Now I’ve only a short time left with these girls before they have to go fruit-picking, so if you’ll excuse me…’

They stared at her. They had run all this way to save her from a gang of armored men and she was giving them the push.

‘Unless you’d like to join the class?’ she asked.

At the starship, the Trolls were swinging a tree trunk, thudding it into the hatch and making absolutely no impression on it at all. Marlowe was sitting in the shade, watching.

‘Gentles,’ said Guinevere, ‘I must tell ye that your ram will ram ye all into the ground ere it breaches my portal.’

Ulf and his men swung the tree trunk again, and then once again, and there was still no effect. He beckoned his men off, and walked over to Marlowe in the shade.

‘I don’t usually take advice from civilians,’ Ulf said.

‘Then I won’t insult you by offering it,’ Marlowe answered.

‘What’s your advice?’ said Ulf.

Marlowe smiled.

Zoe, Zachary and Harold were coming back toward the starship, and Zachary was talking about Meg and distracting them. At least, Harold said later that if Zachary had not been talking about Meg and distracting him, he would have noticed something and the whole thing would have turned out differently. Zachary said later that if the whole thing had turned out differently, something much worse would have happened, so Harold should be thankful that he was distracted, but Harold did not really agree with that.

Zachary was saying: ‘That woman. Did she teach you at high school? How could you bear it? After I nearly had heatstroke trying to rescue her…’

It was at this moment that the net dropped on them. Troll warriors were falling out of the trees like autumn leaves.

‘This is how it happened,’ Harold exclaimed. ‘This is exactly how it happened the first time!’

As Zachary pointed out the next day, it was a little late to be telling them this, because by the time Harold’s message had sunken in, the Troll warriors had them on their feet and were tying their hands behind their backs, and Marlowe and a giant Troll with a scar on his face were strolling out of cover to inspect them.

‘Hi!’ said Zachary with a big, big smile. ‘My name’s Zachary Owens and I’m here to help you with your problems.’

‘Shut your mouth,’ said the giant Troll warrior.

‘Sure. Sure thing, I just wanted to say…’

The giant Troll glared at Zachary and Zachary shut his mouth tight and nodded.

‘You three are coming to see the Don,’ said the giant Trollwarrior.

‘Right! A pleasure!’ Zachary said.

The giant Trollwarrior shook his head and smiled a terrible smile. ‘No,’ he said, ‘whatever else it turns out to be, it won’t be a pleasure.’

On the roof of Trollcastle, under the billow and snap of the two banners, four swordsmen were fighting. All four men were bare-chested and sweating in the heat, but they moved swiftly with the precision and grace of professional sportsmen or dancers.

It was three of them against one, but the odds somehow appeared even. The man fighting alone was extraordinary in both his speed and his execution. Not a huge man, he moved like a big cat, parrying the blades of the other three, riposting, keeping his opponents off-balance with thrust and cut, making ground, then retreating. He was using two blades, the rapier in his right hand and the parrying dagger in his left, until, his opponents having manouevred him into a corner of the rooftop, with a lightning shift he changed hands, the rapier now in his left hand, the dagger in his right as he drove hard against the opponent on his far left, and broke out of the trap.

The man was beautiful, not only in his skill as a swordsman, but in the tight musculature of his compact body and the aquiline lines of his head. Dark curling hair was pasted to his skull by sweat, and sweat ran over the old white scars on his chest and arms. Don Robert, by-named The Bold, was the finest swordsman of his generation. He had won his spurs in battle before the age of 14. He had seen his father, Spider The Gross bring the Duchy to the brink of insurrection, and his evil brother Spider The Nameless take it over that brink.

But Robert The Bold was more like his grandfather Robert The Beautiful than either his brother of father. He was even like him in appearance. The Costellos were an able family, everyone gave them that, but they never came by half-measures. They were good or they were evil, noble or depraved, never a blend.

Robert, working out that day against three of his men-at-arms, was a physical poem. His brother Spider the Nameless had by some accounts been, and perhaps in exile still was, as fine a swordsman. But Spider the Nameless had on several occasions deliberately killed his own men-at-arms in training. Such a thing Robert would never do. It defined the difference between the two brothers.

To one side of the four duelling men was a watchman, using an ancient pair of binoculars to scan the road from the forest and he now turned to Don Robert. ‘Sir Ulf’s party’s on the way back, m’ lord. Three prisoners.’

Robert smiled. ‘Ulf? Take prisoners? Getting soft is he?’ and then, knowing he would soon be called below to talk to the prisoners, he proceeded to wrap up his training session. The Don lunged, let his man-at-arms riposte, and caught the man’s blade in the slot in his rapier’s hilt; with a twist of the wrist, he disarmed him, then flicked the point of his rapier at the man’s exposed throat in a controlled thrust which stopped just short of drawing blood. He was already sidestepping the attack of the two men-at-arms who remained in the game. As he sidestepped he leaned over, and tapped the second man-at-arms on the hamstrings, using the flat of his blade, and then moved into a strong attack on the third, driving him into a corner and ending with the man disarmed and at his mercy. Then he stepped back and saluted his defeated men-at-arms.

‘Thank you gentlemen,’ he said, and then began to wind down, sheathing his dagger and, with sword alone moving into a kind of dance, a blend of tai chi and a karate kata with which he always finished his daily training sessions.

Below, Ulf’s party was just reaching the gates. Zoe, Harold and Zachary, running at the end of ropes, were following the horsemen up to the gates, between the rampant Harley Davidsons. Zachary was looking at the Troll emblem over the gates, and could at last read the writing beneath it. ‘Trolls Motor Cycle Club’ he read, and then ‘they were bikers!’ he laughed, delighted by his discovery.

‘What?’ Harold said.

‘The Trolls. Back in our day they were bikers. Those are Harley Davidsons, that’s a Motor Cycle Club emblem, these police or whatever they are, they’re descendants of an outlaw biker gang by the look of it…’

‘And they’re the new aristocracy?’ asked Harold. He was appalled. These new horse-riding, sword-swinging aristocrats were descended from exactly the sort of people he had been terrified of at school, the ones with oily hair and leather jackets who had done amateur tattoos on each other’s arms at lunch hour. It was not fair.
They could at least have been descended from computer programmers,
he thought,
because we, after all, are the true aristocracy.

It had once been a conference hall. The chemical company which had owned the building had run staff conferences here, bringing in people from other states and from overseas. It was the height of two normal floors, and had a stage at one end, but it had changed greatly since those days 90 years before when men and women wearing company name tags had sat in here for seminars and lectures and sales conferences and plenary meetings.

On either side of the steps going up to the stage there was now a rampant Harley Davidson. Denim Troll club colors hung rotting from flagstaffs like army regimental colors in old churches and on the walls hung portraits of the five Dons.

Don Spider I was depicted wearing biker leathers and denim club colors, leaning on his Harley Davidson, and armed with bowie knife, revolver and shotgun. His son, Robert the Beautiful, was shown by the artist making his last stand at the 2nd Battle of Torrens Bridge. The portrait showed him wearing body armor of a cruder kind than was now the fashion, and fighting with a muzzle-loading pistol and broadsword. The third portrait, showing Don Spider II (The Gross), portrayed him toward the end of his wicked life, armed with rapier and parrying dagger and wearing armor very similar to the current Troll fashion. The fourth portrait, of Don Spider The Nameless, was covered with a cloth. The fifth and last portrait showed Don Robert The Bold, the present Don, wearing black leather with black burnished armor, a gold chain with a gold cross hung about his neck, and standing by a grave with a double headstone. The portrait was recent, unmarked at all by the smoke from the large open fireplace which had been built into one wall of the hall in the time since this was a corporate conference centre.

Don Robert strolled into the hall, passing his own portrait. As in the portrait he was dressed in black leathers and black half-armor. His sword and dagger were at his belt, and a gold chain and cross were about his neck. He looked like a prince from a storybook, even to the air of sadness which hung about him. Here was a man who had lost something very important to him.

Following the Don came his chaplain and political adviser, Father John, a black robed priest carrying a thick wooden staff six feet long, more like a fighting staff than a walking stick. They walked up the steps onto the stage and the Don dropped into the big chair which stood at centre stage like the throne or chair of office which it was. Father John sat in a smaller chair on the Don’s right.

Now the door at the back of the hall opened and Harold, Zoe and Zachary were led in, roped together, with Ulf and two Trolls walking beside them. Marlowe followed at a discreet distance. When they reached the stage, they came to a halt, and Ulf and the Trolls bowed. ‘These are the people living in the iron castle, my lord,’ Ulf said.

‘They have names?’ The Don sounded educated. His voice was quiet, firm, and well modulated. There was nothing rough in his tone, nothing forced. He expected to get his own way and he got it. That was all.

‘Harold, Zoe, Zachary,’ said Ulf, indicating each in turn as he named them.

‘And you’ve built an iron castle on my turf,’ said the Don. He looked at Ulf. ‘What’s inside it?’

‘We didn’t … actually get inside, my lord. We tried axes, battering rams…’ Ulf shrugged.

The Don looked at the prisoners with interest. ‘You’re foreigners, aren’t you?’

‘Well actually we come from…’ Harold began, but broke off as Zachary elbowed him to be silent.

‘Yes,’ said Zachary, smiling his most charming smile, ‘foreigners, just passing through your royal highness, and we’ll be on our way again any minute…’

The Don made a gesture which Zachary correctly interpreted as telling him to be quiet, and he obeyed. The Don looked at Harold. ‘I suspect that you were about to tell me the truth. You began to say
actually we come from
…?’

‘Somewhere else very different,’ Harold replied somewhat lamely.

‘So let me explain something to you,’ said the Don with a most gentle patience. ‘I am Don Robert Costello. On my turf, I am the law. It follows logically from this that if I should want something, then it’s mine. And if I want to see inside your iron castle, then I see inside it. Say if you understand.’

‘Well actually my lord,’ Zoe said, ‘there’s someone inside the castle who … sort of controls the doors. It’s up to her.’

The Don looked at Ulf and Ulf said: ‘There’s a woman inside the castle, my lord. It was she who wouldn’t let us inside.”

“A woman who controls a castle. Not unheard of. My own grandmother, the Lady Anne, commanded this castle under siege for 44 days and nights after my grandfather fell at the 2
^nd
Battle of Torrens Bridge. However, in this case, the woman of the iron castle is on my turf and is therefore my servant, and must obey my lawful commands.’ He looked at Ulf. ‘Is this iron castle an interesting thing, would you say, Ulf?’

‘Very,’ said Ulf.

‘Then it’s my pleasure that we should go and see inside it. And if the lady in charge does not let us in, we shall come back here and I’ll put you three in my dungeons, where you’ll stay until your iron castle rusts away. Say if you understand.’

‘We understand my lord,’ said Zachary, whose normally optimistic view of life was by this stage veering toward a more pessimistic outlook. He had met people like Don Robert before, and he knew that for all their fine manners and high faluting speech, they were hard to con, and very dangerous when crossed.