I paused to let him get that much of it, then continued. "It has named itself the Glondis Empire, and begun to conquer more worlds-including the world where we'd made our new home." I peered at Arno, trying to see his shadowed eyes. "Eventually I expect they'll come here to conquer yours."

He answered in Evdashian, thoughtfully. "Then why come you here, if they will someday follow?"

He still held my stunner in his hand, pointed at me.

"Not to hide," I told him. "We would find no satisfaction in hiding."

"Then why?"

What to tell him? The truth, I decided-the truth in its simplest terms. "We left our home world under gunfire," I told him, still in slow and careful Evdashian. "We were being shot at by powerful weapons. Three of us were killed-shot down as we ran to the sky boat. One was my wife; the Glondis Empire does not hesitate to kill women. We had planned to go to a certain world where we would be welcomed, to help build a rebellion. But our leader, the one of us who knew how to go there, was also killed.

"Your world was the one world we knew the way to, where we felt the Imperial sky navy had not gone yet, because you are so very far away here; much farther than other worlds with people on them."

I had no idea what Arno might be thinking. Maybe that I was crazy-possessed by a demon, as the abbot of St. Stephen's had thought that summer day. But Arno had seen our family cutter and ridden on it several times, which should make a lot of other strange and unlikely claims seem at least marginally possible.

"So we came here with more intentions than plans,"

I went on. "We will try to set ourselves up as supporters of some able and powerful man, and help him establish a kingdom on this world-a kingdom that is too strong for any power here to defeat-then help him form an empire that is not evil like the Glondis. And help him manage it; help him make this world so strong that if, or when, the Glondis Empire comes here, they will not be able to enslave you."

As I said it, it seemed to me that we could never make Fanglith that strong. It was too primitive!

"You came here in a sky boat again?" Arno asked very matter-of-factly.

"Yes. There's no other way."

"And you have a supply of the weapons you had before?"

"A small supply." Suddenly I felt a light surge of excitement. I was onto something after all.

"And if we're successful in setting up a kingdom here, we can go back to our own part of the sky and find a world where more such weapons can be gotten, and bring them."

And experienced rebels with assorted skills, to help build a technical base here, I told myself. That might possibly work; it just might.

We kept riding through the night, his eyes on me, and I knew he had to be digesting what I'd said. Maybe planning something, too. What had Isaac ben Abraham said about the Normans? "They have an extreme restlessness, a recklessness…" Something like that. And also something about "treacheries bloody and outrageous."

Then Arno quit pointing the stunner at me, clipping it on his belt without saying anything.

"Where are we going?" I asked, in Norman now.

"To the castle of Roger of Hauteville, at Mileto, some twenty miles south of here."

"Will I meet Roger?"

"Roger and his elder brother Guiscard, the duke, are on Sicily, where they captured Palermo three months ago. Palermo is Sicily's greatest city-one of the world's greatest-and beautiful beyond words. I fought there. I led a squadron. Then the duke dubbed Roger the Count of Sicily. Roger will rule the island for him, though Guiscard, as duke, will keep Palermo as his own.

"Roger has said he will keep his castle at Mileto, where we are going now. It is no stronghold such as Normans build here, but its walls are thick, and he has no lack of men to defend it. And he controls the country far around.

"He has given me my own fief outside Palermo, where I am having a castle built of stone, atop a rocky hill. I have my own liege knights and sergeants there now, looking to it."

Arno had obviously come a long way in less than three years. He was peering at me as if trying to see what I thought of all this, but the moon was on the wrong side; my face was shadowed. "It is good land," he went on. "Much of it is lowland, nearly flat, with a mountain stream that carries water the year round. But there is no great marsh, and therefore, it is said, no fever. And because the lower slopes are northerly, the pasturage grows thicker and stays green longer."

"So you're going to remain a warrior after all," I said, "instead of becoming a merchant."

"Not so. I have become a baron, but I am also a merchant who raises destriers for our knights and sergeants. That's why I am here in Calabria just now, instead of on my own fief. I've been grazing my breeding herd on the count's land here until I should have my own. In town today I arranged to have them shipped to Palermo. Late tomorrow a ship will come to the wharf at Mileto, and we will load them."

"But most merchants are free men, isn't that so?" I asked. "While a baron is a vassal, owing military service to his liege lord."

For some seconds there was only the dull plodding of hooves on dirt, the occasional click of an iron shoe on stone. Then Arno answered. "No man is truly free. A merchant makes agreements with buyers and others, and owes them goods or services. He pays in money or goods for protection, and more often than not he owes the moneylender."

We rode a way farther without saying anything, Arno's eyes ahead. Finally, he looked at me again. "As a younger son I have no inheritance," he told me, "and my eldest brother is not a man of influence. For me, the road to wealth can best begin by swearing fealty to a great lord, preferably a conqueror, and making myself of special value to him. Also, both Guiscard and Roger are granting fiefs that have little to do with land. One great noble will build Guiscard a fleet with which to conquer Greece or possibly Africa. In my own case, in Sieu of military service, I may pay Roger in destriers if I wish.

"I caught Roger's eye on the battlefield at Misilmeri, nearly four years since, and happily, he had not forgotten me when I returned a year later with my first herd. Italian horses are not suited to our Norman tactics; they lack the weight and strength. So the destriers I brought were almost beyond price. My second herd was mostly brood mares, with only three great stallions. With them I…",

Deneen's voice spoke unexpectedly from the communicator at Arno's belt. He was so surprised he jerked, then reined in his horse. I stopped mine, too. I hadn't remembered to switch it to remote reception after I'd used it the last time on the ship.

"Larn, this is Javelin," she was saying. "Larn, this is Javelin. Over."

"I should answer her," I said.

He reached to his belt and took off the communicator, peering at it. "How is it used? I've forgotten."

"It's a different model from the one I had before. This one is military. Here," I added, reaching.

He scowled, holding it away from me. "Tell me," he said, "for I will not put it in your power."

"All right," I countered, "hold it in your hand and let me touch the magic places."

"Larn, what's the situation down there?" Deneen's voice went on. Obviously, she thought I had it on remote and that no one else was hearing her. She sounded somewhere between exasperated and worried. "Bubba says you're out in the countryside. I seem to have you located on the viewer-I presume it's you- with four other men on the road that goes south along the coast. Come in please, if you can. Over."

While she was saying that, Arno held the communicator out for me to touch. I opened the transmit switch and raised the volume a bit. "Okay, Arno," I told him. "Talk to her."

"Hello," he said in Evdashian. "I am Arno of Courmeron."