1
The broad Hudson, blue under spring skies, was dotted with sails. The orchards in the valley were aglow with white and purple blossoms. Beyond the river frowned Storm King, not much of a mountain by western standards, but impressive enough to a York Stater. The landscape blazed with the livid green of young leaves—and Sir Howard van Slyck, second son of the Duke of Poughkeepsie, wished to God he could get at the itch under his breastplate without going to the extreme of dismounting and removing half his armor.
As the huge black gelding plodded along the by-pass that took the Albany Post Road around Peekskill, its rider reflected that he hadn't been too clever in starting out from Ossining fully accoutered. But how was he to know the weather would turn hot so suddenly? The sponge-rubber padding under the plates made the suit suffocatingly hot. Little drops of sweat crawled down his skin; and then, somewhere around Croton, the itch had begun. It seemed to be right under the Van Slyck trademark, which, inlaid in the plastron, was the only ornamentation on an otherwise plain suit. The trade-mark was a red maple leaf in a white circle, with the Van Slyck motto, "Give 'em the works," in a circle around it.
Twice he had absently reached up to scratch, to be recalled to the realities of the situation by the rasp of metal on metal. Maybe a smoke would help him forget it. He opened a compartment in his saddle, took out pipe, tobacco, and lighter, and lit up. (He really preferred cigarettes, but the ashes dribbled down inside his helmet.)
The by-pass swung out over the New York Central tracks. Sir Howard pulled over to his own side to let a six- horse bus clatter past, then walked the gelding over to the edge and looked down. Up the tracks his eye was caught by the gleam of the brass rings on the ends of the tusks of an elephant pulling a string of little cars; the afternoon freight for New York, he thought. By the smallness of the animal's ears he knew it was the Indian species. Evidently the Central had decided against switching to African Elephants. The Pennsylvania used them because they were bigger and faster, but they were also less docile. The Central had tried one out as an experiment the year before; the duke, who was a big stockholder in the Central, had told him about it. On the trial run the brakeman had been careless and let the lead car bump the elephant's hind legs, whereupon the animal had pulled two cars off the track and would have killed the chairman of the board if it had been able to catch him.
Sir Howard resumed his way north, relieved to note that the itch had stopped. At the intersection of the by-pass with the connecting road to the Bronx Parkway he drew rein again. Something was coming down the road in long, parabolic leaps. He knew what that meant. With a grunt of annoyance he heaved himself out of the saddle. As the thing drew near he took the pipe out of his mouth and flipped his right arm up in salute.
The thing, which looked rather like a kangaroo wearing a football helmet, shot by without apparently looking at him. Sir Howard had heard of sad cases of people who had neglected to salute hoppers because they thought they weren't looking at them. He felt no particular resentment at having to salute the creature. After all, he'd been doing it all his life. Such irritation as he felt was merely at the idea of having to hoist his own two hundred and ten pounds, plus forty pounds of chrome-nickel steel plate back on his tall mount on a hot day.
Seven miles up the Post Road lay Castle Peekskill, and Sir Howard fully intended to sponge a dinner and a night's sleep off his neighbor. Halfway up the winding road he heard a musical toot. He pulled off the asphalt; a long black torpedo on wheels was swooping up the grade behind him. He unshipped the duralumin lance from its boot, and as the car whizzed past, the maple-leaf flag of the Van Slycks fluttered down in an arc. He got a glimpse of the occupants; four hoppers, their heads looking rather like those of giant rats under the inevitable helmets. Luckily you didn't have to dismount for hoppers in power vehicles; they went by too fast for such a rule to be practical. Sir Howard wondered—as had many others—what it would be like to travel in a power vehicle. Of course there was an easy way to find out; just: break a hopper law. Unfortunately, the ride received in that way was a strictly one-way affair.
Oh, well, no doubt God had known what He was about when He had made the rule allowing nobody but hoppers to have power vehicles and explosives and things. Man had been very wicked, so God had sent the hoppers to rule over him. At least that was what you learned in school. His brother Frank had doubts; had, very secretly, confided them to Sir Howard. Frank even said that once man had had his own power vehicles. He didn't know about that; the hoppers knew a terrible lot, and if that had been so they'd have had it so taught in the schools. Still, Frank was smart, and what he said wasn't to be laughed off. Frank was a queer duck, always poking around old papers after useless bits of knowledge. Sir Howard wondered how it was that he got on so well with his skinny little elder brother, with whom he had so little in common. He certainly hoped nothing would happen to Frank before the old man was gathered unto his fathers. He'd hate to have the management of the duchy around his neck, at least just yet. He was having too much fun.
He swung off the road when Castle Peekskill appeared over the treetops, near the site of the old village of Garrison. He stopped before the gate and blew a whistle. The gatekeeper popped out of the tower with his usual singsong of: "Who are you and what do you seek?" Then he said: "Oh, it's you, Sir Howard. I'll tell Lord Peekskill you're here." And presently the gate—a huge slab of reinforced concrete hinged at the bottom—swung out from the wall and down.
John Kearton—Baron Peekskill—was in the courtyard as Sir Howard's horse went plop-plop over the concrete. He had evidently just come in from a try for a pheasant, as he wore an old leather jacket and very muddy boots and leaned on a light crossbow.
"Howard, my boy!" he shouted. He was a short man, rather stout, with reddish-brown hair and beard. "Get out of your tinware and into your store clothes. Here, Lloyd, take Sir Howard's duffel bag to the first guest room. You'll stay overnight with us, won't you? Of course you will! I want to hear about the war. WABC had an announcer at the Battle of Mount Kisco, but he saw a couple of the Connecticut horses coming toward him and pulled foot. After that all we could hear was the sound of his horse going hell-for-leather back to Ossining."
"I'll be glad to stay," said Sir Howard. "If I'm not putting you out—"
"No, no, not a bit of it. You've got that same horse still, I see. I like entires better for war horses myself."
"They may have more pep," admitted the knight, "but this old fellow does what I want him to, which is the main thing. Three years ago he took third in his class at the White Plains show. That was before he got those scars. But take a look at this saddle; it's a new and very special model. See: built-in radio, compartments in the cantle for your things, and everything. Got it at a discount, too."
Sir Howard clanked upstairs after his host. The transparent lucite visor of his burganet was already up; he unlatched the bib and pushed it up, too, then carefully wriggled his head out of the helmet. His square, craggy face bore the little beard and mustache affected by his class. His nose was not all that a nose should be, as the result of an encounter with the business end of a billhook. But he had refused to have it plasticized back into shape, on the ground that he could expect more than one broken nose in his life, and the surgery would, therefore, be a waste of money. His inky-black hair covered a highly developed brain, somewhat rusty from disuse. When you could knock any man in the duchy out of his saddle, and drink any man in the duchy under the table, and had a way with the girls, there were few stimuli to heavy thinking.
Peekskill remarked: "That's a nice suit you have. What is it, a Packard?"
"Yeah," replied Sir Howard, pulling off a rerebrace. "It's several years old; I suppose I'll have to trade it in for a new model one of these days. The only trouble is that new suits cost money. What do you think of the new Ford?"
"Hm-m-m—I dunno. I'm not sure I like that all-lucite helmet. It does give you vision in all directions. But if they make it thick enough to stop a poleax, it'll make you top-heavy, I think. And the lucite gets scratched and nicked up so quickly, especially in a fight."
"Let's see your kicker, John," said Sir Howard, reaching for the crossbow. "Marlin, isn't it?"
"No, Winchester, last year's. I had my armorer take off that dimmed windage adjustment, which I never used, anyway. That's why it looks different. But let's hear about the war. The papers gave us just the bare facts."
"Oh, there wasn't much to it," said Sir Howard with exaggerated indifference. "I killed a man. Funny: I've been in six fights, and that was the first time I really knew I'd gotten one of the enemy. I'm not counting that bandit fellow we caught up at Staatsburg. You know how it is in a fight: everybody's hitting at you and vice versa, and you don't have time to see what damage you've done.
"I shouldn't claim much credit for this killing, though. I signed up at Ossining because the city manager's a cousin of mine, and they pay well. The C. M. collected a couple of hundred heavy horses from lower Westchester, and he had the commons of Ossining and Tarrytown for pikes. He'd heard that Danbury was going to get a contingent of heavy horses from Torrington. So he put us in two groups, lances in the first only. I was in the second, so they made me leave my toothpick behind. That's a nice little sticker, by the way; Hamilton Standard made it.
"We found them just this side of Mount Kisco. Our scouts flushed an ambush, very neat; chevaux-de-frisse at the far end, horses on either side, crossbows behind every bush. The C. M. swung us south to smash one of their bodies of horses before the other could come up. When we shook out and charged, their left wing scattered without waiting for us as if six devils with green ears were after them. I couldn't see anything because of the lances in front of my group. But the ground's pretty rough, you know, and you can't keep a nicely dressed line. The first thing I knew was when something went bong on my helmet, and these red-shirted chaps with spiked helmets and shields were all around me, poking at the joints in my suit. They were Danbury's right wing. He hadn't been able to get any heavy horses, after all, but he seemed to have enlisted all the light horses in Connecticut. They were crab-suited, with chain pants hanging down from their cuirasses.
"I swung at a couple of them, but they were out of reach each time before the ax got there. Then Paul Jones almost stepped on a couple of dismounted red-shirts. I chopped at one, but he got his shield up in time. And before I could recover, the other one, who didn't have a shield, grabbed the shaft in both hands and tried to take it away from me. I was afraid to let go for fear he'd kill my horse before I could get my sword out. And while we were having our tug-of-war, some crab on the other side of me—the left side—grabbed my ankle and shoved it up. Of course, I went out of the saddle as pretty as a pay check, right on top of this chap who wanted my ax.
"I couldn't see anything for a few minutes because I had my head in a bush. When I got up on my knees there weren't any more red-shirts in sight. They'd found us pretty hard nuts to crack, and when they saw the pikes coming they beat it. I found I still had hold of the ax. The Danburian was underneath me, and the spike on the end of the shaft was driven under his chin and up into his head. He was as dead as last year's treaties. They had about half a dozen killed in that brush; we lost one man—thrust under the armpit—and had a couple of horses killed by kicker bolts. We took their dismounted horses and some of their crossbows prisoner. I climbed back on Paul Jones and joined up with the chase. We couldn't catch them, naturally. We chased 'em clear to Danbury Castle, and when we got there they were inside thumbing their noses and shooting at us with ballistae.
"We sat outside for a couple of weeks, but they had enough canned stuff for years, and threatening a seventy-foot concrete wall doesn't get you anywhere. So finally the C. M. and Danbury agreed to submit their argument about road tolls to a hopper court, and we went back to Ossining for our pay."
During his story Sir Howard had gotten out of his armor and into his ordinary clothes. It was pleasant to sprawl in the freedom of tweed and linen, with a tall glass in your hand, and watch the sun drop behind Storm King. "Of course, it might have been different"—his voice dropped till it was barely audible—"if we'd had guns."
Peekskill started. "Don't say such things, my boy. Don't even think them. If they found out—" He shuddered a little and took a big gulp of his highball.
A flunky entered and announced: "My lord, Squire Matthews, with a message from Sir Humphrey Goldberg."
Peekskill frowned. "What's this? Why couldn't he have written me a letter? Come on, Howard, let's see what he wants."
They found the squire in the hall, looking grimly polite. I le bowed stiffly, and said with exaggerated distinctness: "My Lord Peekskill, Sir Humphrey Goldberg sends his compliments, and wants to know what the hell your lordship meant by calling him a double-crossing, dog-faced baboon in the Red Bear Inn last night!"
"Oh, dear," sighed the baron. "Tell Sir Humphrey that first, I deny calling him such name; and second, if I did call him that, I was drunk at the time; and third, even if I wasn't drunk I'm sorry now, and ask him to have dinner here tonight."
The squire bowed again and went, his riding boots clicking on the tiles. "Hump's all right," said Peekskill, "only we've been having a little argument about my electric-light plant. He says it ruins his radio reception. But I think we can fix it up. Besides, he's a better swordsman than I am. Let's finish our drinks in the library."
They had just settled when a boy in a Western Union uniform was ushered in. He looked from one to the other; then went up to Sir Howard. "You Van Slyck?" he asked, shifting his gum to one cheek. "O.K. I been tryin' to find ya. Here, sign, please."
"Manners!" roared the baron. The boy looked startled, then irked. He bowed very low and said: "Sir Howard van Slyck, will your gorgeous highness deign to sign this . . . this humble document?"
Both men were looking angry now, but Sir Howard signed without further words. When the boy had gone, he said: "Some of these commoners are too damn fresh nowadays."
"Yes," replied his host, "they need a bit of knocking around now and then to remind them of their place. Why . . . what's the matter, Howard? Something wrong? Your father?"
"No. My brother Frank. The hoppers arrested him last night. He was tried this morning, condemned, and burned this afternoon.
"The charge was scientific research."