Stairway to Forever (20 page)

A complete change of outer clothing, two sets of underwear, three spare pairs of boot socks, toiletries, first-aid items, a small sewing kit and a scissors, an eight-foot by four-foot tarp of a light canvas with metal grommets at corners and along edges, fifty feet of three hundred pound test rope, insect repellent, a roll of toilet paper, a folding spade, a belt axe, a compact set of pot, pan, plates, cup and utensils, a packet of fishing gear, an Arkansas stone for the axe and machete blades, a folding lantern and candles for it, a butane pocket lighter and four aluminum replacement tanks for it, a box of lifeboat matches. The flare projector, of course, along with two each green and red star flares for it. Flashlight and spare batteries, salt tablets.

He considered the air mattress, then decided against it. The weight and bulk of the thing simply did not

justify it. Besides, while he would be able to patch holes or smaller rips, a really large one would make the thing so much useless garbage to be left behind on the trail. And there were other ways to soften the ground under him, using natural, on-the-spot materials.

On his belt, in addition to the revolver and two cased speed-loaders for it, he carried his Ka-bar belt knife, a lensatic compass, two cased one-quart canteens, one of them with a cup, the machete and the smaller, more rugged pair of binoculars.

When he hefted pack, bedroll and belt together, however, they seemed lighter than any sixty or even fifty pounds, total, so he added a few "luxuries"—a small spool of wire for making snares, a pair of sharp-nosed pliers, a swiss army knife, a camouflaged poncho, another pair of boot socks, a spare set of rawhide boot laces and, on momentary impulse, a steel slingshot and its bag of ball-bearing projectiles. He had always been good with a slingshot and, should he lose or damage the drilling, the slingshot might well provide him with small game to fill his belly.

When he had used the compass to ascertain the exact position of the storage cave, he scratched the coordinates onto the back of the compass case with the point of a knife, then blocked the entrance as well as he could with the available boulders, before piling brush and branches over all. Then he urinated over as much of the brush as he could, hoping that the strong odor of humanity would keep animals away for at least a little while; it was all he could do.

He settled the straps of the pack-frame comfortably on his shoulders, slung his drilling, knotted a bandanna around his head to catch sweat before it reached his eyes, took up his hiking stick and set out due north, up the slope. It seemed as good a direction to travel as any.

That night, in another, higher vale, he dined on rabbit, a small tin of beans and tea, then banked the fire and sacked in, his bag atop a rectangle of tight-packed conifer tips, his pack out of the reach of prowling scavengers by way of suspension from a high tree branch on the end of his rope. Sleeping, unprotected and companionless in the open, as he was, he took all the weapons into the bag with him.

The grey cat did not visit him that night. What finally awakened him was the sunlight . . . and pain. He opened his eyes with a squall to see some very odd visitors about his camp. There seemed to be twelve or fourteen of them, none of them taller than he, but invariably sturdy, hale and strong-looking.

Some were blond men, some darker haired; all had fair skin, though much-weathered and mostly very dirty. All but one wore hide brogans, tight trousers and shirts that hung to mid-thigh, the cloth of both looking to be the color of unbleached wool and coarse of texture. Over the shirts, most of them wore sleeveless leather jackets, a couple of these jackets being faced with overlapping scales of what looked like horn or bone. All wore identical headgear, however—a conical steel helmet with a metal piece projecting down between the eyes to protect the nose. For weapons, they all wore a long-bladed dirk at the rear of their belts with the hilt canted to the right or the left, two or three held odd-shaped axes and the rest had spears five or six feet long. It had been the butt of one of these latter that Fitz had been most urgently prodded.

The squat, red-haired ruffian standing beside the sleeping bag had grinned at Fitz's squall of pain. He did it again, but this time, now awake, his victim only grunted, so he reversed the weapon, clearly making ready for a downstab into chest or belly.

The tallest man, wearing a mail hauberk with sleeves and chausses and standing observant, one grubby hand on the pommel of a sheathed sword, seemed not about to do or say aught to stop his subordinate from coldly murdering Fitz, just for fun, so Fitz felt constrained to stop the proceedings himself.

Fingering up the quick-release of the bag's zipper, he threw it from off him, drew his revolver and fired a single round into the chest of the spearman. The force of the big round threw the body, flopping, a good five yards backward, to at last land well dead, though still bleeding copiously, a wide portion of the leather jerkin scorched black and smoking from the gunpowder.

For a moment, every one of the smelly strangers stood stock-still. The only sound was the thud made by the pack falling to the ground under the tree, as the man who had untied the rope suddenly let it go as if it had been a live viper. Then, with some cry of incomprehensible words, the man in the hauberk drew his sword, whirled it up and ran in Fitz's direction, shouting what sounded like the same words once again.

"Aw, God damn it, anyway," yelled Fitz in reply, then shot down the charging man, too.

At this, the strangers made a somewhat expedited withdrawal, running, scrambling through the woods in every direction, shouting in a foreign tongue, some of them, others seemingly just screaming mindlessly in sheer terror.

"Way to go, Daddyo!" came a voice . . . no, he realized, a thought transfer, "That's two of them Norman assholes down."

Following this statement, a full-grown lion strolled slowly into the clearing, a big, full-maned, baby-blue lion.

"You dig what they saying, man?" inquired the blue lion. "They all thinks they run up against one of old Saint Germain's black magicians. And that's cool, too, man, it means that bunch at least'll let us be from now on . . . maybe."

"Who the hell are you ?" thought Fitz, bewil-deredly. "And who were those poor, savage bastards I had to shoot? I don't understand any of all this."

"I'm a cool cat, man," replied the lion, matter of factly. "I'm the coolest cattest character you or anybody elst has ever seen. I'm Cool Blue, the meanest, lightest horn that ever blew a riff. I did my thing from coast to coast with all the top ensembs. And I'll be doing it again real soon now, soon's I can find out how to get out of this lion rig and get back to where I come from, man."

All at once, the baby-blue lion whuffed aloud and thought out, "Hey, man, I think that one in the rusty sweatshirt moved. You sure you cooled him right?"

"How should I know?" thought Fitz in answer. "That wasn't an aimed shot, it was just reflexive. I hope I didn't kill him. I don't take any pleasure in killing, you know."

"Oh, me too, man," the lion assured him. "Like, I only kill to eat, you know."

Upon examination, the man in the hauberk was not dead—although, to Fitz's nose, he smelled as if he should have been decently buried at least a week earlier. The .44 slug had almost missed him; in fact, it had glanced off the left side of the conical helmet, leaving a deep dent in the metal and rendering its wearer unconscious for a short span of time.

Upon fully awakening he groaned, then slowly sat up to sway on his rump. Picking up his helmet and observing the place whereon a hefty blow had obviously been dealt it, he whistled softly between his

teeth, shook his head, then groaned feelingly once more.

He regarded Fitz with brown eyes that were full of pain, yet he somehow got his lips into a smile, slowly nodded his coiffed head and spoke words that could have been Greek for all that Fitz comprehended of them.

The blue lion's thoughts entered Fitz's mind. "Man, look, I won't be around all the time to help you out, so do this. See? See how easy it is? Now, like you can understand anybody, even if they like talk weird languages like this Norman dude, you know.

"What he said to start out, man, was like, you know, he don't remember what really happened, like. He knows you offed the other one, you know, but like he seems to think you beat him down with that damn machete or something, you know. Anyhow, he says he can't pay you a ransom, so he's gonna have to like serve you, man. Not too bad of an offer, man; at least you'd like have a cat to like guard your back, you know, when I'm not like around, you know. He's got guts, too, man, all these Normans has; not too many brains, most of them, but like a whole pisspot full of guts, you know. He's like strong, too, man."

"Too damned strong for my liking," thought Fitz to the Hon. "He stinks like he's spent the last month soaking in a cesspool."

"Really?" replied the baby-blue Hon. "Like don't throw rocks, man, you aren't that much less of a stinkpot than him, you know. I don't know how you and your land stand yourselves, like I don't know how I stood my own self, you know, man. I tell you, a honest skunk is one hell of a lot easier to take than either you or him, man. You dig?"

When he had seen in Sir Gautier de Mountjoie's

mind what was the proper formula, Fitz took the young knight's oaths of fealty and service. Then, guided by Cool Blue, they all trooped off to a stream-fed pool. There, after Fitz had refilled both canteens, he stripped and bathed with deodorant soap, shampoo and a bath brush. When he had observed just what was rquired of him, Sir Gautier gritted his teeth and did the bidding of his new overlord, trying to forget how unhealthful and how patently unChris-tian was the act.

By the time they had walked back to camp, the sun had dried them both and Sir Gautier, signing himself reverently against possible evil, allowed his new overlord to spray his entire body with an icy-cold substance that left a not-unpleasant scent of Syriac oranges. While they had been absent at their bath, some something had come into the area of the camp and dragged off the dead body of the spearman, entire, but the spear had been left where it had lain and Sir Gautier was quick to appropriate it, as well as another spear and an axe which had both been dropped by the other Normans in the course of their rout, earlier that morning.

Cool Blue, who had been so grumpy about the disappearance of so much fresh-killed meat that his color had changed from baby- to royal blue, then faded finally to sky blue, left the camp while Fitz was heating a pot of water for tea and bouillon. Sir Gautier, squatting at fireside across from his new and most singular overlord, began to tell his story, speaking in Norman French, of course, but with Fitz understanding the young knight's thoughts.

Born of a Saxon mother and a Norman sergeant who had been knighted for his deeds upon the Field of Senlac, Gautier had been the youngest of the three sons who had had the good fortune and sturdy

constitution to live to adulthood. He, too, had gained his spurs on the field, in battle against the wild, savage Welsh; he had gained an overlord there, too, that day—Sir William de Warrenne, Earl de Surrey.

But Sir Gautier had had only two years of comfort upon his knight's fee, before the Crusade was preached throughout all Christendom and his overlord had declared his intent to march with his host on Palestine and help to free the Holy City of Jerusalem from beneath the evil heel of the foul Unbeliever, so what was there for a faithful vassal to do but himself take the Cross and prepare to follow his master, for good or for ill, for wealth or for poverty, for life or for death, to the Holy Land.

He had no legal heirs. His young bride had died— her and the babe, together—in childbirth, and the few by-blows scattered about the countryside were only one-quarter Norman and so not worth the legitimizing. So, there being no other way to raise the cash necessary to his aims and aspirations, he had sold everything of value for silver marks and so brought along a full score of armed retainers to flesh out the host of Surrey.

At the sticking point, however, his overlord had not embarked, but had sent a younger brother, one Sir Reinald, as surrogate captain of his host. In France, they had joined with the mighty French host for the march across all of Europe to Byzantium. That march had been one disaster after another, with co-religionists— greedy, avaricious, and thieving, at best; murderous, at worst—robbing and killing the Holy Host on every hand. Horses, mules, draught oxen and asses had dropped like flies. The only two horses Sir Gautier had had left as his portion of the strung-out, miles-long column had passed into Byzantine lands had been commandeered by Sir Reinald to mount a

favorite cook and his jester, leaving Sir Gautier and his remaining fourteen men all afoot.

It had not been until the long, brutal Battle of Dorylaeum that, in that battle's aftermath, Sir Gautier had been able to remount himself and his own, original survivors, plus those of another knight he had taken on following their masters death of wounds and thirst. The horses had been manageable and speedy enough, but of so light a breed that none of them proved capable of carrying a full-armed Western warrior for any distance or length of time, but they had been the only horseflesh then and there available so he had made do with them.

Before the young Norman could "tell" more, Cool Blue had returned, once more a baby-blue hue, but now with red blood smeared around his chops. "Like, man," he thought good humoredly, to Fitz, "your kind don't smell too good, but you don't make a bad meal. I caught the big, spotted cat stole that body from here, run him off and ate the most of that Norman spearman, you know. Like, once you get past the smell, you got it like licked, you dig?"

At length, they began the day's hike, Fitz first having had to be quite firm on the subject of carrying his own load himself. That load was only less than sixty pounds, he estimated, everything included, while the knights mail pieces and helmet alone totaled close to that, not even including his sword, two spears, dirk, axe or the rolled woolen cloak that had been left in the woods when the Normans had first invaded Fitz's camp. In the end, he had made a sling of one of his spare boot-laces and given the knight one of the canteens to carry.