Fantastic Stories Presents: Science Fiction Super Pack #1. Рэй Брэдбери
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there’ll be several hundred with the farmers across the hills.” She looked into his eyes, “I know it’s a forlorn hope, Hull, but—we’ve got to try. You’ll help, won’t you?”
“Of course. But all your Harriers can attempt is raids. They can’t fight the Master’s army.”
“I know. I know it, Hull. It’s a desperate hope.”
“Desperate?” said Enoch suddenly. “Hull, didn’t you say you were ordered to Black Margot’s quarters this evening?”
“Yes.”
“Then—see here! You’ll carry a knife in your armpit. Sooner or later she’ll want you alone with her, and when that happens, you’ll slide the knife quietly into her ruthless heart! There’s a hope for you—if you’ve courage!”
“Courage!” he growled. “To murder a woman?”
“Black Margot’s a devil!”
“Devil or not, what’s the good of it? It’s Joaquin Smith that’s building the Empire, not the Princess.”
“Yes,” said Enoch, “but half his power is the art of the witch. Once she’s gone the Confederation could blast his army like ducks in a frog pond.”
“It’s true!” gasped Vail. “What Enoch says is true!”
Hull scowled. “I swore not to bear weapons!”
“Swore to her!” snapped Enoch. “That needn’t bind you.”
“My word’s given,” said Hull firmly. “I do not lie.”
Vail smiled. “You’re right,” she whispered, and as Enoch’s face darkened, “I love you for it, Hull.”
“Then,” grunted Enoch, “if it’s not lack of courage, do this. Lure her somehow across the west windows. We can slip two or three Harriers to the edge of the woodlot, and if she passes a window with the light behind her—well, they won’t miss.”
“Oh, I won’t,” said Hull wearily. “I won’t fight women, nor betray even Black Margot to death.”
But Vail’s blue eyes pleaded. “That won’t be breaking your word, Hull. Please. It isn’t betraying a woman. She’s a sorceress. She’s evil. Please, Hull.”
Bitterly he yielded. “I’ll try, then.” He frowned gloomily. “She saved my life, and—Well, which room is hers?”
“My father’s. Mine is the western chamber, which she took for her—her maid,” Vail’s eyes misted at the indignity of it. “We,” she said, “are left to sleep in the kitchen.”
An hour later, having eaten, he walked somberly home with Vail while Enoch slipped away toward the hills. There were tents in the dooryard, and lights glowed in every window, and before the door stood two dark Empire men who passed the girl readily enough, but halted Hull with small ceremony. Vail cast him a wistful backward glance as she disappeared toward the rear, and he submitted grimly to the questioning of the guards.
“On what business?”
“To see the Princess Margaret.”
“Are you Hull Tarvish?”
“Yes.”
One of the men stepped to his side and ran exploratory hands about his body. “Orders of Her Highness,” he explained gruffly.
Hull smiled. The Princess had not trusted his word too implicitly. In a moment the fellow had finished his search and swung the door open.
Hull entered. He had never seen the interior of the house, and for a moment its splendor dazzled him. Carved ancient furniture, woven carpets, intricately worked standards for the oil lamps, and even—for an instant he failed to comprehend it—a full-length mirror of ancient workmanship wherein his own image faced him. Until now he had seen only bits and fragments of mirrors.
To his left a guard blocked an open door whence voices issued. Old Marcus Ormiston’s voice. “But I’ll pay for it. I’ll buy it with all I have.” His tones were wheedling.
“No.” Cool finality in the voice of Joaquin Smith. “Long ago I swore to Martin Sair never to grant immortality to any who have not proved themselves worthy.” A note of sarcasm edged his voice. “Go prove yourself deserving of it, old man, in the few years left to you.”
Hull sniffed contemptuously. There seemed something debased in the old man’s whining before his conqueror. “The Princess Margaret?” he asked, and followed the guard’s gesture.
Upstairs was a dimly lit hall where another guard stood silently. Hull repeated his query, but in place of an answer came the liquid tones of Margaret herself. “Let him come in, Corlin.”
A screen within the door blocked sight of the room. Hull circled it, steeling himself against the memory of that soul-burning loveliness he remembered. But his defense was shattered by the shock that awaited him.
The screen, indeed, shielded the Princess from the sight of the guard in the hall, but not from Hull’s eyes. He stared utterly appalled at the sight of her lying in complete indifference in a great tub of water, while a fat woman scrubbed assiduously at her bare body. He could not avoid a single glimpse of her exquisite form, then he turned and stared deliberately from the east windows, knowing that he was furiously crimson even to his shoulders.
“Oh, sit down!” she said contemptuously. “This will be over in a moment.”
He kept his eyes averted while water splashed and a towel whisked sibilantly. When he heard her footsteps beside him he glanced up tentatively, still fearful of what he might see, but she was covered now in a full robe of shiny black and gold that made her seem taller, though its filmy delicacy by no means concealed what was beneath. Instead of the cothurns she wore when on the march, she had slipped her feet into tiny high-heeled sandals that were reminiscent of the footgear he had seen in ancient pictures. The black robe and her demure coif of short ebony hair gave her an appearance of almost nunlike purity, save for the green hell-fires that danced in her eyes.
In his heart Hull cursed that false aura of innocence, for he felt again the fascination against which he had steeled himself.
“So,” she said. “You may sit down again. I do not demand court etiquette in the field.” She sat opposite, and produced a black cigarette, lighting it at the chimney of the lamp on the table. Hull stared; not that he was unaccustomed to seeing women smoke, for every mountainy woman had her pipe, and every cottage its tobacco patch, but cigarettes were new to him.
“Now,” she said with a faintly ironic smile, “tell me what they say of me here.”
“They call you witch.”
“And do they hate me?”
“Hate you?” he echoed thoughtfully. “At least they will fight you and the Master to the last feather on the last arrow.”
“Of course. The young men will fight—except those that Joaquin has bought with the eldarch’s lands—because they know that once within the Empire, fighting is no more to be had. No more joyous, thrilling little wars between the cities, no more boasting and parading before the pretty provincial girls.” She paused. “And you, Hull Tarvish—what do you think of me?”
“I call you witch for other reasons.”
“Other reasons?”
“There is no magic,” said Hull, echoing the words of Old Einar in Selui. “There is only knowledge.”
The Princess looked narrowly at him. “A wise thought for one of you,” she murmured, and then, “You came weaponless.”
“I keep my word.”
“You owe me that. I spared your life.”
“And I,” declared Hull defiantly, “spared yours. I could have sped an arrow through that