Retief: Diplomat-at-Arms. Keith Laumer
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organization dedicated to the contravention of war. He had made his decision long ago, and he had learned to accept his life as it was, with all its imperfections. It was easy enough to complain about the petty intrigues, the tyranies of rank, the small inequities. But these were merely a part of the game, another challenge to be met and dealt with. The overcoming of obstacles was Jame Retief’s specialty. Some of the obstacles were out in the open, the recognized difficulties inherent in any tough assignment. Others were concealed behind a smoke-screen of personalities and efficiency reports; and both were equally important. You did your job in the field, and then you threaded your way through the maze of Corps politics. And if you couldn’t handle the job any part of it you’d better find something else to do.
He had accepted the assignment of course, after letting Magnan wonder for a few minutes; and then for two months he had buried himself in research, gathering every scrap of information, direct and indirect, that the massive files of the Corps would yield. He had soon found himself immersed in the task, warming to its challenge, fired with emotions ranging from grief to rage as he ferreted out the hidden pages in the history of the exiled Cavaliers.
He had made his plan, gathered a potent selection of ancient documents and curious objects; a broken chain of gold, a tiny key, a small silver box. And now he was here, inside the compound of the Grand Corrida.
Everything here in these ways surrounding and radiating from the Field of the Emerald Crown the arena itself was devoted to the servicing and supplying of the thousands of First Day contenders in the Tournament of the Lily, and the housing and tending of the dwindling number of winners who stayed on for the following days. There were tiny eating places, taverns, inns; all consciously antique in style, built in imitation of their counterparts left behind long ago on far off Lily.
“Here you are, pop, firstclass squire,” called a thin red-haired fellow.
“Double up and save credits,” called a short dark man. “First-day contract...” Shouts rang back and forth across the alley-like street as the stall keepers scented a customer. Retief ignored them, moved on toward the looming wall of the arena. Ahead, a slender youth stood with folded arms before his stall, looking toward the approaching figure on the black horse. He leaned forward, watching Retief intently, then straightened, turned and grabbed up a tall narrow body shield from behind him. He raised the shield over his head, and as Retief came abreast, called “Battle officer!”
Retief reined in the horse, looked down at the youth. “At your service, sir,” the young man said. He stood straight and looked Retief in the eye. Retief looked back. The horse minced, tossed his head.
“What is your name, boy?” Retief asked.
“Fitzraven, sir.”
“Do you know the Code?”
“I know the Code, sir.”
Retief stared at him, studying his face, his neatly cut uniform of traditional Imperial green, the old but well oiled leather of his belt and boots.
“Lower your shield, Fitzraven,” he said. “You’re engaged.” He swung down from his horse. “The first thing I want is care for my mount. His name is Danger-by-Night. And then I want an inn for myself.”
“I’ll care for the horse myself, Commander,” Fitzraven said. “And the Commander will find good lodging at the sign of the Phoenix-in-Dexter-Chief; quarters are held ready for my client.” The squire took the bridle, pointing toward the inn a few doors away.
Two hours later, Retief came back to the stall, a thirty-two ounce steak and a bottle of Neauveau Beaujolais having satisfied a monumental appetite induced by the long ride down from the spaceport north of Fragonard. The plain banner he had carried in his saddlebag fluttered now from the staff above the stall. He moved through the narrow room to a courtyard behind, and stood in the doorway watching as Fitzraven curried the dusty hide of the lean black horse. The saddle and fittings were laid out on a heavy table, ready for cleaning. There was clean straw in the stall where the horse stood, and an empty grain bin and water bucket indicated the animal had been well fed and watered.
Retief nodded to the squire, and strolled around the courtyard staring up at the deep blue sky of early evening above the irregular line of roofs and chimneys, noting the other squires, the variegated mounts stabled here, listening to the hubbub of talk, the clatter of crockery from the kitchen of the inn. Fitzraven finished his work and came over to his new employer.
“Would the Commander like to sample the night life in the Grand Corrida?”
“Not tonight,” Retief said. “Let’s go up to my quarters; 1 want to learn a little more about what to expect.”
Retief’s room, close under the rafters on the fourth floor of the inn, was small but adequate, with a roomy wardrobe and a wide bed. The contents of his saddlebags were already in place in the room.
Retief looked around. “Who gave you permission to open my saddlebags?”
Fitzraven flushed slightly. “I thought the Commander would wish to have them unpacked,” he said stiffly.
“I looked at the job the other squires were doing on their horses,” Retief said. “You were the only one who was doing a proper job of tending the animal. Why the special service?”
“I was trained by my father,” Fitzraven said. “I serve only true knights, and I perform my duties honorably. If the Commander is dissatisfied. . .”
“How do you know I’m a true knight?”
“The Commander wears the uniform and weapons of one of the oldest Imperial Guards Battle Units, the Iron Dragon,” Fitzraven said. “And the Commander rides a battle , horse, true bred.”
“How do you know I didn’t steal them?”
Fitzraven grinned suddenly. “They fit the Commander too well.”
Retief smiled. “All right, son, you’ll do,” he said. “Now brief me on the First Day. I don’t want to miss anything. And you may employ the personal pronoun.”
For an hour Fitzraven discussed the order of events for the elimination contests of the First Day of the Tournament of the Lily, the strategies that a clever contender could employ to husband his strength, the pitfalls into which the unwary might fall.
The tournament was the culmination of a year of smaller contests held throughout the equatorial chain of populated islands. The North-royalans had substituted various forms of armed combat for the sports practiced on most worlds; a compensation for the lost empire, doubtless, a primitive harking-back to an earlier, more glorious day.
Out of a thousand First Day entrants, less than one in ten would come through to face the Second Day. Of course, the First Day events were less lethal than those to be encountered farther along in the three day tourney, Retief learned; there would be a few serious injuries in the course of the opening day, and those would be largely due to the clumsiness or ineptitude on the part of the entrants.
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