Chapter III

Sam Carter moaned silently. He tried for the hundredth time since the journey began to shift his legs into a position where the insides would not be rubbed raw by the rough hair of his horse-like mount. He resolved for the dozenth time that one of the “inventions” he would import from the southern provinces would be a good, comfortable saddle.

Another would be silk; the rough fabrics worn by Kahl’s subjects were a fair substitute for the mount’s hide.

“Ho, southerner!” Prince Kahl wheeled his mount back from the head of the column and waited until Sam had caught up, then he fell in beside him. “How goes it? Does my second favorite mount suit you well?”

“Very well indeed, graciousness,” said Sam. “I cannot in honesty recall when I’ve had a more--ouch!--instructive ride!”

“Good!” Kahl leaned over and slapped him on the shoulder. “You’ll be glad to know we’ve but three more hours to go before reaching the summer palaces.”

“Only, uh, three more hours?” The sinking sensation in Sam’s stomach had nothing at all to do with the undulating motion of his beast. “Ah, that is good news, your graciousness. We’ll be there almost before we know it.”

Sam wished Kahl would go away and leave him to his misery, but the prince seemed disposed to talk. “I think there will be many surprised faces in my father’s court tonight. Eh, southerner?” He chuckled, and then burst into raucous laughter as he considered the idea further. “And to think, it will all be perfectly legal! You have the papers safe, my friend?”

“Yes, your graciousness,” said Sam, sighing and patting his saddlebags.

“Good! Don’t lose them--I’d hate to see you missing your head!” He laughed again, while Sam’s stomach turned several more flipflops. “The sight of blood always did make me sick.”

There were sixteen men in the mounted party, including a dozen of Kahl’s private guard, the captain of the troop and the High Priest of the Sun God, the nation’s officially sponsored religion. The High Priest was a little old man, bent over more from age than from the discomforts of the journey. Originally Sam had planned for one more member, but that had become unnecessary when he learned that the High Priest was also President of the Royal College of Chirurgeons. The latter role was even more important to his plans than the former. Now all that worried Sam was the possibility that the priest might not live to the end of the journey. He was inflicted with a hacking cough that sent chills racing up and down Sam’s spine every time he went into a fit.

Kahl grew weary of bantering small talk with a man really fit to come up with witty replies. He wheeled his horse again and dropped back to the end of the column for a moment, saying something to the High Priest, then he spurred his mount back to the head of the line, falling into his original position beside the Captain of the Guard. The two men were soon lost in reminiscences that had bored Sam to tears, every time he had been an unwilling audience.

Another hour passed miserably, while the sun mounted to the zenith and began the long summer afternoon drop back down to the horizon. The members of the Guard and Kahl pulled short stubby loaves of bread and cheese from their saddle bags and munched as they rode on, washing the food down with vigorous pulls at the wine-skins that took the place of water canteens on the planet. Sam had first thought the constant imbibing of alcohol to be a national vice. Then he ran tests on half a dozen waterholes. Thereafter he drank wine himself.

Now, however, he was completely without an appetite. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw that the priest was in the same boat. Suddenly, without knowing why, he pulled his mount up and waited until the priest caught up with him, then fell in at the end of the column.

“How goes it, Reverence?”

The priest looked up, watery eyes registering surprise at his company. “Oh, southerner.” He broke into one of his coughing spasms. “Ahhh, not well, southerner. Not well at all. The Sun God does not ride with me this day--not that he’s deserted me, you understand: he never rides with me. The Sun God has more sense than a foolish old man who should be staying home in the comfort of his apartments, not galivanting around the country-side like a frisky kitten.”

“I wish he had imparted some of his wisdom to me,” said Sam. “I confess I feel as you look, Reverence. No disrespect intended, believe me. It’s just that the ardors of this journey have taken much toll from both of us. And I swear, by the Sun God himself, you are bearing up much better than I.”

“A man who has traveled as long and as far as you talking this, southerner?”

“It’s the way you travel, Reverence. The greatest part of my journey was by ship.” It had been; Sam merely neglected to specify that it was a spaceship. “Ocean travel has its own peculiar discomforts, but for myself, I’ll take it every time.”

“Tell me, southerner,” said the priest, “why do you make this trip?”

“Prince Kahl wished it,” he replied.

“Ah, but there is more to this than lies on the surface. Why should Kahl bring you, a stranger and a subject of another house, along on a venture that may well cast the future course of events for this entire nation?”

“Prince Kahl seems to feel that, ah, I might, because of my experiences in other lands, serve him in some minor capacity of usefulness.” Sam chose his words with care. The old man was entirely too observant for his liking.

“Kahl is an astute man,” said the priest. “However, he is also a hungry man, and such a man on the verge of starvation will eat things that in more normal circumstances he would pass up without so much as a first look. Ideas are much like food, southerner.”

“The philosophers of my country have a saying, Reverence. ‘Man does not live by bread alone.’”