We were among plowed fields soon after we reached the road and soon the blood kites thinned out. Just at sundown we could see outbuildings and the lights in the manor where Star said that we would spend the night.
Chapter 8
Milord Doral ‘t Giuk Dorali should have been a Texan. I don't mean that the Doral could have been mistaken for a Texan but he had that you-paid-for-the-lunch-I'll-pay-for-the-Cadillacs expansiveness.
His farmhouse was the size of a circus tent and as lavish as a Thanksgiving dinner—rich, sumptuous, fine carvings and inlaid jewels. Nevertheless it had a sloppy, lived-in look and if you didn't watch where you put your feet, you would step on a child's toy on a broad, sweeping staircase and wind up with a broken collarbone. There were children and dogs underfoot everywhere and the youngest of each weren't housebroken. It didn't worry the Doral. Nothing worried the Doral, he enjoyed life.
We had been passing through his fields for miles (rich as the best Iowa farmland and no winters; Star told me they produced four crops a year) -- but it was late in the day and an occasional field hand was all we saw save for one wagon we met on the road. I thought that it was pulled by a team of two pairs of horses. I was mistaken; the team was but one pair and the animals were not horses, they had eight legs each.
All of Nevia valley is like that, the commonplace mixed with the wildly different. Humans were humans, dogs were dogs—but horses weren't horses. Like Alice trying to cope with the Flamingo, every time I thought I had it licked, it would wiggle loose.
The man driving those equine centipedes stared but not because we were dressed oddly; he was dressed as I was. He was staring at Star, as who wouldn't? The people working in fields had mostly been dressed in sort of a lava-lava. This garment, a simple wraparound tied off at the waist, is the equivalent in Nevia of overalls or blue jeans for both men and women; what we were wearing was equal to the Gray Flannel Suit or to a woman s basic black. Party or formal clothes—well, that's another matter.
As we turned into the grounds of the manor we picked up a wake of children and dogs. One kid ran ahead and, when we reached the broad terrace in front of the main house, milord Doral himself came out the great front door. I didn't pick him for lord of the manor; he was wearing one of those short sarongs, was barefooted and bareheaded. He had thick hair, shot with gray, an imposing beard, and looked like General U. S. Grant.
Star waved and called out, "Jock! Oh, Jocko!" (The name was "Giuk," but I caught it as "Jock" and Jock he is.)
The Doral stared at us, then lumbered forward like a tank, "Ettyboo! Bless your beautiful blue eyes! Bless your bouncy little bottom! Why didn't you let me know?" (I have to launder this because Nevian idioms don't parallel ours. Try translating certain French idioms literally into English and you'll see what I mean. The Doral was not being vulgar; he was being formally and gallantly polite to an old and highly respected friend.)
He grabbed Star in a hug, lifted her off her feet, kissed her on both cheeks and on the mouth, gnawed one ear, then set her down with an arm around her. "Games and celebrations! Three months of holiday! Races and rassling every day, orgies every night! Prizes for the strongest, the fairest, the wittiest—"
Star stopped him. "Milord Doral—"
"Eh? And a prize of all prizes for the first baby born—"
"Jocko darling! I love you dearly, but tomorrow we must ride. All we ask is a bone to gnaw and a corner to sleep in."
"Nonsense! You can't do this to me."
"You know that I must."
"Politics be damned! I'll die at your feet, Sugar Pie. Poor old Jocko's heart will stop. I feel an attack coming right now." He felt around his chest. "Someplace here—"
She poked him in the belly. "You old fraud. You'll die as you've lived, and not of heartbreak. Milord Doral—"
"Yes, milady?"
"I bring you a Hero."
He blinked. "You're not talking about Rufo? Hi, Rufe, you old polecat! Heard any good ones lately? Get back to the kitchen and pick yourself a lively one."
"Thank you, milord Doral." Rufo "made a leg," bowing deeply, and left us.
Star said firmly, "If the Doral please."
"I hear."
Star untangled his arm, stood straight and tall and started to chant:
"By the Singing Laughing Waters
"Came a Hero Fair and Fearless.
"Oscar hight this noble warrior,
"Wise and Strong and never daunted,
"Trapped the Igli with a question,
"Caught him out with paradoxes,
"Shut the Igli's mouth with Igli.
"Fed him to him, feet and fingers!
"Nevermore the Singing Waters...
It went on and on, none of it lies yet none of it quite true—colored like a press agent's handout. For example, Star told him that I had killed twenty-seven Horned Ghosts, one with my bare hands. I don't remember that many and as for "bare hands," that was an accident. I had just stabbed one of those vermin as another one tumbled at my feet, shoved from behind. I didn't have time to get my sword clear, so I set a foot on one horn and pulled hard on the other with my left hand and his head came apart like snapping a wishbone. But I had done it from desperation, not choice.
Star even ad-libbed a long excursus about my father's heroism and alleged that my grandaddy had led the chaise at San Juan Hill and then started in on my great-grandfathers. But when she told him how I had picked up that scar that runs from left eye to right jaw, she pulled out all the stops.
Now look, Star had quizzed me the first time I met her and she had encouraged me to tell her more during that long hike the day before. But I did not give her most of the guff she was handing the Doral. She must have had the Surete, the FBI, the Archie Goodwin on me for months. She even named the team we had played against when I busted my nose and I never told her that.
I stood there blushing while the Doral looked me up and down with whistles and snorts of appreciation. When Star ended, with a simple: "Thus it happened," he let out a long sigh and said, "Could we have that part about Igli over again?"
Star complied, chanting different words and more detail. The Doral listened, frowning and nodding approval. "A heroic solution," he said. "So he's a mathematician, too. Where did he study?"
"A natural genius, Jock."
"It figures." He stepped up to me, looked me in the eye and put his hands on my shoulders. "The Hero who confounds Igli may choose any house. But he will honor my home by accepting hospitality of roof...and table...and bed?"
He spoke with great earnestness, holding my eye; I had no chance to look at Star for a hint. And I wanted a hint. The person who says smugly that good manners are the same everywhere and people are just people hasn't been farther out of Podunk than the next whistle stop. I'm no sophisticate but I had been around enough to learn that. It was a formal speech, stuffed with protocol, and called for a formal answer.
I did the best I could. I put my hands on his shoulders and answered solemnly, "I am honored far beyond any merit of mine, sir."
"But you accept?" he said anxiously.
"I accept with all my heart." ("Heart" is close enough. I was having trouble with language.)
He seemed to sigh with relief. "Glorious!" He grabbed me in a bear hug, kissed me on both cheeks, and only some fast dodging kept me from being kissed on the mouth.
Then he straightened up and shouted, "Wine! Beer! Schnapps! Who the dadratted tomfoolery is supposed to be chasing? I'll skin somebody alive with a rusty file! Chairs! Service for a Hero! Where is everybody?"
That last was uncalled for; while Star was reciting what a great guy I am, some eighteen or fifty people had gathered on the terrace, pushing and shoving and trying to get a better look. Among them must have been the personnel with the day's duty because a mug of ale was shoved into my hand and a four-ounce glass of 110-proof firewater into the other before the boss stopped yelling. Jocko drank boilermaker style, so I followed suit, then was happy to sit down on a chair that was already behind me, with my teeth loosened, my scalp lifted, and the beer just starting to put out the fire.