The Green Odyssey by Philip José Farmer (love books to read TXT) 📗

you take out at rare intervals and over which you gloat all night."

"My wife told you!" gasped the Duke. "Oh, what an izzot she is!"

"Granted," said Green. "She babbled to me many secrets, being a featherbrained, idle, silly, stupid female, a fit consort for you. So I know where the unique exurotr statuette made by Izan Yushwa of Metzva Moosh is hidden, the glass bird that cost the whole dukedom a great tax and brought many bitter tears and hardships from your subjects. I will have no compunction about destroying it even if it is the only one ever made and if Izan Yushwa is now dead so that it can never be replaced."

The Duke's eyes bulged in horror.

"No, no!" he said in a quavering voice. "That would be unthinkable, blasphemous, sacrilegious! Have you no sense of beauty, degenerate slave that you are, that you would smash forever that most beautiful of all things made by the hands of man?"

"I would."

The Duke's mouth drew down at the corners; suddenly, he was weeping.

Green was embarrassed, for he knew how great must be the emotion that could make this man, educated in a hard school, break down before an enemy. And he reflected upon what a strange thing a human being was. Here was a man who would literally allow his throat to be cut before he would display cowardice by bargaining for it. But to have his precious collection of glass birds threatened...!

Green shrugged. Why try to understand it? The only thing to do was to use whatever came his way.

"Very well, if you wish to save them you must do this." And he detailed exactly the Duke's moves and orders for the next ten minutes. He thereupon made him swear by the most holy oaths and upon his family name and by the honor of the founder of his family that he would not betray Green.

"To make sure," added the Earthman, "I shall take the exurotr with me. Once I know your word is good I'll take steps to see that it is returned undamaged to you."

"Can I depend on that?" breathed the Duke hoarsely, rolling his big brown eyes.

"Yes, I will contact Zingaro, Business Agent of the Thieves' Guild, and he will return it to you, for a compensation, of course. But before we conclude this bargain you must swear that you will not harm Amra, my wife, nor any of her children, nor confiscate her business but will behave toward her as if this had never happened."

The Duke swallowed hard, but he swore. Green was happy, because, though he was going to desert Amra, he was at least insuring her future.

It was a long, long hour later that Green came out of his hiding place inside a large closet in the Duke's apartment. Even though the Duke had sworn the holiest of oaths, he was as treacherous as any of the barbarians on this planet, and that was very treacherous indeed. Green had stood behind the door, sweating and listening to the loud and sometimes incoherent conversation taking place between the Duke, his soldiers and the Duchess. The Duke was a good actor, for he convinced everybody that he had escaped from the mad slave Green, had seized a sword and forced him to make a running broad jump from the balcony railing. Of course, several guardsmen had seen a large man-sized object hurtle from the balcony and fall with a loud splash into the moat below. There was no doubt that the slave must have broken his back when he struck the water or else he had been knocked out and then drowned. Whatever had happened, he had not come out.

Green, his ear against the door, could not help smiling at this, despite his tension. He and the Duke had combined forces to heave out a wooden statue of the god Zuzupatr, weighted with iron dishes tied to it so that it wouldn't float. In the moonlight and the excitement, the idol must have looked enough like a falling man to deceive anybody.

The only one seemingly not satisfied was Zuni. She raised every kind of hell she knew, behaved in a most undignified manner, screeched at her husband because his blood-thirstiness and lack of restraint had robbed her of the exquisite tortures she'd planned for the slave who had attempted to dishonor her. The Duke, his face getting redder and redder, had suddenly bellowed out at her to quit acting like a condemned izzot and go at once to her apartments. To show that he meant what he said he ordered several soldiers to escort her. Zuni, however, was too stupid to see how perilous was her situation, how near the headsman's ax. She raved on until the Duke gave a sign and two soldiers seized her elbows—at least, Green supposed they did, for she yelled at them to take their dirty hands off her—and propelled her out of the rooms. Even then it took some time before the Duke could close the doors on his last guest.

The little ruler opened the door. In his hand he held a priest's green robe, the sacerdotal hexagonal spectacles and a mask for the lower part of the face. The mask was customarily worn when a monk was on a mission for a high dignitary. During the time the face was covered the monk was under a vow not to speak to anyone until he had reached the person for whom he had a message. Thus, Green would not be bothered with any embarrassing questions.

He put on the robe, spectacles and mask, threw the hood over his head and placed the glass exurotr inside his shirt. His loaded pistol he kept up one capacious sleeve, holding it with the other hand.

"Remember," said the Duke anxiously as he opened the door and peered out to see if anybody was on the staircase, "remember that you must take every precaution against damaging the exurotr. Tell Zingaro that he must at once pack it in a chest filled with silks and sawdust so it won't break. I will die a thousand deaths until it comes back once again to my collection."

And I, thought Green, will die a thousand deaths until I get safely out of your reach, out of the city and far away on a windroller.

He promised again that he would keep his word as well as the Duke kept his, but that he would also take every measure to insure against treachery. Then he slipped out and closed the door. He was on his own until he boarded the Bird of Fortune.

10

He had no trouble at all, except for making his way through the thick traffic. The explosions and shouting coming from the castle had aroused the whole town, so that everybody who could stand on his two feet, or could get somebody to carry him, was outside, milling around, asking questions, talking excitedly and in general trying to make as much chaos as possible and to enjoy every bit of this excuse to take part in a general disturbance. Green strode through them, his head bent but his eyes probing ahead. He made fairly good progress, only being held up temporarily a few times by the human herd.

Finally the flat plain of the windbreak lay before him, and the many masts of the great wheeled vessels were a forest around him. He was able to get to the Bird of Fortune unchallenged by any of the dozens of guardsmen that he passed. The 'roller herself lay snugly between two docks, where a huge gang of slaves had towed her. There was a gangway running up from one of the docks, and at both ends stood a sailor on guard, clad in the family colors of yellow, violet and crimson. They chewed grixtr nut, something like betel except that it stained both teeth and lips and gave them a green color.

When Green stepped boldly upon the gangway the nearest guard looked doubtful and put his hand on his knife. Evidently he'd had no orders from Miran about a priest, but he knew what the mask indicated and that awed him enough so that he did not dare oppose the stranger. Nor was the second guard any quicker in making up his mind. Green slipped by him, entered the mid-decks and walked up the gangway to the foredeck. He knocked quietly on the door of the captain's cabin. A moment later it swung violently open; light flooded out, then was blocked off by Miran's huge round bulk.

Green stepped inside, pressing the captain back, Miran reached for his dagger but stopped when he saw the intruder take off the mask and spectacles and throw back the hood.

"Green! So you made it! I did not think it was possible."

"With me all things are possible," replied Green modestly. He sat down at the table, or rather crumpled at it, and began repeating in a dry voice, halting with fatigue, the story of his escape. In a few minutes the narrow cabin rang with the captain's laughter and his one eye twinkled and beamed as he slapped Green on the back and said that by all the gods here was a man he was proud to have aboard.

"Have a drink of this Lespaxian wine, even better than Chalousma, and one I bring out only for honored guests," said Miran, chortling.

Green reached out a hand for the proffered glass, but his fingers never closed upon the stem, for his head sank onto the tabletop, and his snores were tremendous.

It was three days later that a much-rested Green, his skin comfortably, even glowingly, tight with superb Lespaxian, sat at the table and waited for the word to come that he could finally leave the cabin. The first day of inactivity he'd slept and eaten and paced back and forth, anxious for news of what was going on in the city. At nightfall Miran had returned with the story that a furious search was organized in the city itself and the outlying hills. Of course, the Duke would insist that the 'rollers themselves be turned inside-out, and Miran was cursing because that would mean a fatal delay. They could not wait for more than three more days. The fish tanks had been installed; the provisions were almost all in the hold; his roistering crewmen were being dragged out of the taverns and sobered up; two days after tomorrow the great vessel would have to be towed out of the windbreak and sails set for the perilous and long voyage.

"I wouldn't worry," said Green. "You will find that tomorrow word will come from the hills that Green has been killed by a wild man of the Clan Axaquexcan, who will demand money before handing the dead slave's head over. The Duke will accept this as true and will conveniently forget all about searching the 'rollers."

Miran rubbed his fat oily palms, while one pale eye glowed. He loved a good intrigue, the more elaborate the better.

But the second day, even though what Green had predicted came true Miran became nervous and began to find the big blond man's constant presence in his cabin irksome. He wanted to send him down into the hold, but Green firmly refused, reminding the captain of his promise of haven within these very walls. He then calmly appropriated another bottle of the merchant's Lespaxian, having located its hiding place, and drank it. Miran glowered, and his face twitched with repressed resentment, but he said nothing because of the custom that a guest could do what he pleased—within reasonable limits.

The third day Miran was positively a tub of nerves, jittery, sweating, pacing back and forth. At last he left the cabin, only to begin pacing back and forth on the deck. Green could hear his footsteps for hours. The fourth day he was up at dawn and bellowing orders to his crewmen. A little later Green felt the big vessel move and heard the shouts of the foremen of the towing gangs and the chants of the slaves as they bent their backs hauling at the huge ropes attached to the 'roller.

Slowly, oh, so slowly it seemed to Green, the craft creaked forward. He dared open a curtain to look out the square port-hole. Before him was the rearing side of another 'roller, and just for a second it seemed to him that it, not his vessel, was the one that was moving. Then he saw that the 'roller was advancing at a pace of about fifteen or sixteen feet a minute. It would take them an hour to get past the towering brick walls of the windbreak.

He sweated out that hour and unconsciously fell into his childhood habit of biting his nails, expecting at any time to see the docks suddenly boil with soldiers running after the Bird of Fortune, shouting for