Three grimy, smoke-stained commoners found him there. They were wrestling a red handcart laden with chemical extinguishers to the site of the nearest blaze. Suddenly deferential at seeing the blood-smeared silver-gray of his tunic and the shining crested helmet, one of them left his comrades and led Duke Harald to the community first-aid post. There, a sullen but outwardly polite medico taped up his ribs—unnecessarily tight, Duke Harald thought. And that attitude pointed up another facet of the situation that his fellows of the Council preferred to ignore: the restlessness, the growing discontent among the commoners. A military aristocracy’s chief—and only—claim to leadership stemmed from the protection that its battle skills afforded. If that protection failed, what then? Another Altair?
Duke Harald stood up, resumed his wrinkled shirt and tunic, and touched a lighter to a cigarette. The white-garbed medico was cleaning up. There were no more patients; Duke Harald had waived treatment until the last of the villagers’ wounds had been attended.
At length he spoke, impatient of the other’s fussy, back-turned puttering with his instruments.
“What prisoners?” he asked. It did not occur to him—nor would it have to any other Arkadian—to doubt that the raiders had made off with some.
“Two, your grace.” The medico’s voice shook. “Old Jonas Borrow and his small grandson, sunning themselves on the bench before the Red Lion.”
Duke Harald grunted, outwardly impassive. He had heard these tales, seen these sights too often before. His hatred for the aliens was as marrow-deep as the other’s. Only it was colder—save perhaps in the immediate red flame of battle.
“This Jonas Borrow—who was he?” The local baron was, he knew, in King’s Town. The old man then, was probably—
“Our village clan leader,” said the other, confirming the thought. Always, always the telepathic aliens took people who were in a position to know something. How much had Jonas Borrow known of the projected troop levies? Well, that plan, too, would now have to be changed.
“Has he a successor, hereditary or appointed?” he went on.
“Not on Arkady, your grace. His son—the child’s father—is off-planet somewhere.”