The pretty daughter of the squire,
She came a-riding by;
Of sunlight was her fine long hair,
Of gray flint was her eye.
The Mink he takes her by the arm:
"Now you must come with me!
We'll dwell a space in the wild wild woods
Beneath the great oak tree!"
--Ruck's Ballad of the Mink
Revel saw the lead horse, a piebald brute with hoofs like mallets,
coming at him. The squire atop it was leaning down with the mane
whipping his cheeks, smirking at Revel as he drove his steed forward.
He made the fastest decision of his life. He could roll and save
himself, for he was quick as a lightning bolt; or he could keep hold of
the wench and try to preserve them both.
He could never have told what prompted him to decide to save the Lady
Nirea.
At any rate, he threw himself atop her, clamped his arms tight to her
sides, and rolled, not toward the brambles, for it was too late for
that, but to the center of the path. The piebald crashed by, swerving
too late to clip him; the other horses came at him in a solid phalanx.
He yanked her up, gaining his own feet by an animal contraction of body.
As the heads of the nearest stallions reached him he slipped between
them, holding her steady behind him, and praying to the Orbs (from force
of lifetime habit) to preserve them for the next minute.
Without Nirea it would have been simple; holding her safe behind him
while two lurching horses passed, that made it the trickiest thing he'd
ever done. As the squires' legs came abreast, one blink later, he took
hold of one of them which was clad in tight blue breeches, and hauled
down. Then he leaped forward between the horses' tails, twitching the
woman after him with a jerk that almost tore the arm from her body.
The squire in the blue breeches toppled over, howling, and fell on the
path. Revel yanked the Lady Nirea to one side as the mass of them swept
by, and saw with satisfaction a stallion, trying not to step on the
fallen squire, take a nasty tumble itself, flinging its rider ten feet
ahead, where he was trampled by a couple of less cautious nags.
Other horses fell over the first one, and the gentry milled about,
roaring bloody hell and death on everybody. The two hounds smelled blood
and attacked the fallen squires, and Blue Breeches raced off into the
woods, one of the ravening dogs at his heels.
Revel made for the other side, the brambles where Jerran had
disappeared. He was hauling the girl behind him. A beef-faced squire on
a pirouetting horse loosed off his gun at Revel, who snatched a handgun
from his belt and fired back. Both of them missed. A gentryman in tan
and gold long-skirted coat leaped in front of the miner, the flared
muzzle of his gun coming up toward Revel's breast.
Revel shot by instinct, without aiming. The man's face turned into a
mess that looked like squashed raspberries. Revel stepped over his body
and tried to plunge into the brambles, but he had lost the exact spot,
and thorns barred the way.
Then, four feet down the road, Jerran's yellow face popped into view.
"Here, lad!"
* * * * *
At that instant Lady Nirea gave a wrench and freed herself from Revel's
grip. He whirled and leaped and snatched down, catching the collar of
the silver gown. Her momentum carried her forward, but the dress stayed
in his hand ripped completely off. He went after her--she was falling
now--and caught her, though the atmosphere seemed to be composed equally
of gentry and rearing stallions.
Then he turned, carrying her slung over one arm, and managing to reach
Jerran's anxious-looking head by knocking down one squire and kicking
another in the groin, he dived into the bushes. The Lady Nirea squalled
shrilly as the thorns gashed at her soft skin. But Revel blundered on
into the bramble patch.
Jerran led him through what seemed impenetrable thickets, following a
route that must have been marked, though Revel could not see how. Behind
them, the gentry howled and loosed off their guns, but the brambles
defeated them, for Revel caught no sounds of pursuit. A scream that
thrilled up and choked off must have been the unfortunate Blue Breeches.
Revel looked up, thinking of the globes; he could see the sky in many
places through the tangle, but realized that it was probably a thick
green solid floor to a watcher from above. A god would have to come very
low to see anything moving beneath it.
The woman said bitterly, "For Orbs' sake, at least carry me in some
fashion that won't expose _quite_ so much of me to the thorns!" She
paused and added as an after-thought, "You mudhead!"
He hitched her around and held her curled to his chest, faintly
conscious of the smooth body, but concentrating on protecting her from
harm; he thought suddenly that he was treating her as if she'd been a
ruck woman, instead of one of the gentry, the loathed and feared
squirarchy. Was he putting too much importance on the physical
attractions that had made him take her?
Jerran was leading him now along a tunnel-like passage of twined, arched
shrubbery that made them stoop low. "It'd help if you walked, Lady," he
said.
"You may not have noticed it, miner, but I have on just one slipper, and
it doesn't have a heel." She scowled up at him. "And when I say one
slipper, I mean that's _all_."
"You look fine," he grinned. "No silk and satin looks as attractive as
your own pelt, my lady."
They traveled for upwards of half an hour, sometimes down forest lanes
that allowed free passage, other times through thickets that ripped
their flesh and slowed them to a swearing, sweating crawl. Always there
was a screen above them of natural growth, shielding them from the
buttoned sky.
At last before them there opened a huge amphitheater of the forest, a
hollow with gently sloping sides, covered by a gigantic roof of twined
willow wands and twigs. Jerran said, gesturing upward, "That's the
biggest piece of camouflage we ever did! The top of it is planted with
grass and scrub, rooted in square sods of earth cut from the woods'
floor in many places. From above it looks like a round hill rising out
of the trees. Took us a year to perfect it."
"Jerran, who is 'us' and--"
"Why, lad, the rebels."
Revel stared at the little man. Could Jerran, the straw-colored stringy
fellow he'd worked beside all these years, the quiet one who'd preached
serenity and dragged him out of a hundred brawls, could he be a rebel?
Fantastic....
The rebels were the anonymous elite of the ruck. They were the
malcontents of their society, men whose intellects could not swallow the
dreary bromides of the priests, who felt savage indignation against the
cruel gentry and the bright, all-mighty globes. It was said that they
formed an organization in Dolfya and other cities, these rebels, and
that to them could be laid the sabotaging of the coal and diamond mines,
the gentry slain in accidents that looked too pat, and the constant aura
of uneasy discontent that pervaded the shebeens and all such illegal
gathering places of the ruck.
The rebels were highly romantic figures, but Revel had always considered
them mythical, for who could think of resisting the condition of Things
As They Are? Songs were sung about them over the turf fires, in the
squat little huts of the people, and by vagabonds who roamed the
countryside by night. The rebels went by fanciful names, as rebels of
the people always do; and the one most sung of, most whispered about, in
Dolfya at least, was the Mink, who seemed to be a kind of promised
savior who would come (soon, always soon) with punishments for the
gentry and liberation for the ruck.
* * * * *
So Revel stared at Jerran, mouth agape, and repeated stupidly, "The
rebels?"
"Aye, lad! Didn't you ever guess?"
"Orbs, no!"
"Why'd you think I kept stopping your fights in the shebeen?"
"Because you were a pacifist."
The small man shook with laughter. "One, there's nothing I love so much
as a good brawl. Two, a brawl might bring the orbs or the gentry to our
hidden drink-house, and that'd be bad. Three, a man who's a rebel must
appear _not_ to be one, even to men he believes he can trust. Four, I've
had my eye on you ever since I came from Hakes Town, and didn't want you
murdered in a drunken scrimmage. So five, though I hated to do it, I had
to preserve you from raging and quarreling until all that brute force
and honest fury could be turned to real account for us."
"I can't take it in," Revel said helplessly. "It's as though the heroes
of the Ancient Kingdom that we sing about, Rob-'em-Good and Jonenry and
Lynka, had met me here. I never believed in rebels, truly, Jerran."
"Why should you? We haven't done anything big yet. We've been searching
and waiting for a leader."
Revel snapped his fingers. "The Mink!"
"Yes, the Mink." Jerran looked at him oddly, head cocked like a small
yellow bird. "He hasn't come yet, but he will."
Revel looked around him. The amphitheater was dim, lit only by the
sunlight that managed to creep in from the forest around it; for no
illumination fell from the sodded roof. It must be capable of holding
hundreds of men. "How many are you?" he asked.
"Some four thousand and three hundred." There was pride in the man's
voice. "After today, Revel, we shall be uncountable thousands. Now the
gods have been torn down."
"Not torn down."
"Torn down," repeated Jerran firmly, "from their false 'untouchable'
eminence. You've shown the world that the globes can be slain as easily
as hares."
"They can still rise into the buttoned sky, and rule from there."
"We'll find ways," grunted Jerran impatiently. "False gods that can die
can be lured down by trickery--or we can find a way to go up to the
buttons."
"That's insane," said Revel, and would have amplified it, but at that
moment the girl spoke.
"When you are quite ready, _Squire_ Revel, I wonder if you'd kindly set
me down?"
He had forgotten her, slung over his shoulder like a slain doe. Hastily
he slipped her off and set her on her feet. She was like a forest nymph,
one of those legendary wild women who haunted the trees near towns and
lured men to their death; tall and whitely lovely, her stark naked body
shone against the greensward with a perfection that made Revel's throat
constrict.
Then she doubled up a fist and hit him in the eye.
"You lout!" said the gorgeous creature. "Can't you at least get me
something to wear?"
"I can have clothes for you in two minutes, Lady Nirea," said Jerran.
"Man's clothes, I'm afraid. No woman has ever seen the meeting place
before you."
"Man's clothes--rucker's clothes," she said caustically. "If I'd known
what--"
Then her words were muffled by a terrible sound, a noise as of the earth
exploding beneath them. Nothing moved, yet they had the sensation of
being shaken intolerably by a giant blast of wind. The roar dwindled
away, reluctant to cease, and Revel said, "What is it?"
"Come on," said Jerran urgently, "we'll go to the dome and see."
"The dome?"
"The roof of the sanctuary," barked Jerran impatiently. "It holds the
weight of a score of men without quivering. We build slowly, but well."
He sprinted away.
"The girl!" yelled Revel.
Jerran called over his shoulder, "If she's fool enough to risk woods
lions and the bears, let her go!"
Revel stared at Nirea. Then he chuckled. "No gentrywoman could find her
way home from this maze-center. You'll wait." He followed his friend.
They shinned up a tree on the edge of the clearing, and jumped to the
rim of the dome, which never even swayed beneath their impact. Revel saw
it stretch up before him like a grassy hill, and marveled at the rebels'
artistry. Shortly they were standing on the crest, and he was clutching
at Jerran's arm.
"Orbs above! Look there!"
On the horizon lay a tremendous cloud of gray-black smoke, like the
reeking smudge of a forest fire; above it rose another and more ominous
cloud, this tinged with red and of mushroom shape.
Revel was speechless, but Jerran ripped out a curse that would have
curled the hair of a squire's neck.
"The Globate Credo," he said. "You've proved it wrong in one respect,
but there's terrible proof of its truth in another." He spat. "If I
figure right, that cloud's hanging over the eastern quarter of Dolfya
Town, where none but the ruck lives; and every soul that lived there is
dead as last week's dinner."
"The Credo?" said Revel haltingly.
"Sure. _Vengeance of the gods comes swift and without warning, below the
twin clouds, with a sound of volcanoes._ Nobody ever knew what that
meant ... till now."