Starship Home (20 page)

A little over an hour later, the gate in the wall of Trollcastle opened, and Troll servants carrying lighted torches of resinous wood led the way to the school bus. The Don had Meg’s arm on his, and she was alternately feeling weak at the knees and furious. She found him attractive, but hated his high-handed attitudes, and wanted to get to know him well enough to tell him to get lost so that they could then begin to develop a relationship like normal civilized people.

Harold, Zoe, Zachary and the Wyzen followed Meg and the Don, and with them walked Father John, Ulf, and some other Trolls, with Marlowe hanging close behind.

When they reached the bus, the Don kissed Meg’s hand and she went through one of her weak-at-the-knees moments. ‘Until tomorrow,’ he said.

She knew she had to tell him. ‘You don’t understand, Don. Marriages just aren’t arranged like this.’

‘But they are. Every day of the week,’ he said. ‘It’s our custom.’

‘But not ours.’

‘Whose land are you in?’

‘Ours … yours,’ she answered.

‘Over-excited,’ he said. ‘Confused. Perfectly natural. Don’t bother your head about it. I’ll arrange everything with Zachary.’

Meg went through one of her hating him for an arrogant albeit handsome thug phases, let out a furious breath and marched into the bus, followed by the others.

The Don watched, as Zachary sat down behind the wheel. Marlowe had edged up behind the Don. As Zoe passed them in order to board the bus, she heard Marlowe murmur: ‘Don’t do this, my lord, They’ll betray you. Take my advice. Sell them up the river.’

The Don looked at Marlowe. ‘Did I ask your advice?’

‘My lord…’

‘Enough!’ snapped the Don and looked back at Meg in the bus. ‘Woman in a thousand.’

In the bus, Zachary was looking for the ignition keys. ‘I thought I handled all that very well,’ he was saying. ‘Where’s the keys?’

‘You got me into this Zachary, you get me out of it,’ Meg muttered to him.

Zoe, now aboard the bus, was looking out at Marlowe, who was watching them balefully. ‘Zachary, I think we should get out of here.’

‘Sure. When I find the keys.’ He looked at Meg. ‘What’s the matter with you? He’s handsome, has his own castle, he’s titled, probably plays polo … the keys anyone?’

Zoe leaned in close. ‘Zachary, that village wizard guy you did the deal with? Marlowe? The one who was going to intercede with the Don for us?’

‘I don’t have the keys,’ said Meg.

‘Well someone’s got the keys!’ Zachary looked at Zoe. ‘Yeah, I saw him there tonight, didn’t get a chance to have a word. Then who does have the keys?’

‘Well I just heard him telling the Don to sell us up the river wherever that is.’

The Wyzen trotted up from her seat in the back with the keys in her paw. She moved in alongside Zachary and dropped them on the floor and started playing with the light switches.

‘Glad someone round here’s got a sense of responsibility,’ muttered Zachary and then said to Zoe: ‘You’re right. I think we’d better get out of here.’

As he started the bus, Zoe moved toward her usual school day position on the back seat. When she got to it, she found her schoolbag and basketball were still there from the day of the Slarn raid. ‘Hey great!’ she yelled, then looked at Harold. ‘Did you know my basketball was here?’

‘Of course I did, we’ve been sleeping in the bus.’

‘You knew my basketball was here and didn’t bring it to me? Didn’t think to tell me?’

‘Why would you need your basketball?’

‘No brains,’ she said, bouncing the ball on the floor of the bus.

As the bus drove away, the Don and Father John watched it go. Marlowe was still behind them, listening. ‘You think they’re really from the past?’ the Don asked the priest.

‘I wasn’t sure,’ said Father John. ‘I thought for a while that he was lying, but… the clothes, the … you saw the clocks on their wrists? And the autobile’s new. Yes, I think they’re from the past.’

‘With knowledge from the past, I could unite the region,’ the Don said, his eyes staring off into the night. ‘Bring peace, end the Sullivan menace, stop the westward ambitions of the King of Vic. I could be High King. With the Lady Henderson my queen.’

In the shadows behind them, Marlowe listened. His plans were going badly here, but he must hang on. The Don was determined to marry the woman thief, but somewhere in all this there must be a chance to manipulate events to his advantage.

Later, back on the starship bridge, Harold and Zachary were playing Zoe two-to-one volleyball, using Zoe’s basketball for the ball and the washing line as a net. The Wyzen was helping. Meg lay sulking on one of the couches, and trying to cool off Guinevere’s enthusiasm for the impending wedding.

‘And when shall thy nuptials be?’ asked Guinevere’s image from the screen.

‘There’s not going to be any nuptials,’ Meg said.

‘‘tis not an offer to be dismissed too lightly. A peasant woman such as thyself, still unwed in middle age, to be married to a lord…’

‘Who says I’m a peasant!’

‘Art thou of gentle blood then?’ Guinevere seemed puzzled.

‘And I’m not middle aged! And my father was knighted for services to the British Army before we came out to Australia.’

‘Very well. I shall not call thee peasant, Meg, lawful and decent as that calling may be. I say to thee Meg that the daughter of an humble country knight, offered marriage by a most puissant lord should look well to it.’

‘He’s arrogant.’

‘Was ever duke or belted earl not so? How many offers hast thou had in all thy long life that thou shouldst thrust him off like this?’

‘I’ve had plenty of offers! In my quite short life!’ Meg was getting very irritated with Guinevere.

‘Offers. Of marriage?’

‘Yes of marriage, ironbrain!’ Meg paused and amended the statement. She was not by nature a liar. ‘Among the plenty of offers I’ve had, several have in fact been of marriage.’

‘But from a lord…?’ Guinevere simply could not comprehend Meg’s objections.

‘He’d known me fully five minutes. “Hello, who are you, let’s get married, I’ll fix it up with your owner, Zachary”. I am not a prize mare to be mated at my alleged owner’s say-so!’ The basketball whizzed over her head and Harold ran to retrieve it. ‘Do you lot really have to do that inside?’

‘My dam first met my sire at the altar and they loved each other full well for many a year.’

‘My grandparents back in Greece married that way,’ Zoe told Meg. ‘Both sets. Very happy all of them.’

‘I’m not mediaeval and I’m not Greek.’

‘Think on it, Meg. Thou art 24 summers old. An old maid in middle years…’

‘Speak for yourself! You’re an old maid of 600!’

Guinevere’s image on the screen went very still and stern. ‘Methinks thou dost need an husband,’ she said, ‘to teach thee gentler manners.’

‘Well it won’t be that Don,’ Meg said flatly. ‘I’m never going to see him again.’

But Meg saw him again the next morning while she was eating breakfast. So much, she thought, for good resolutions. She was eating fruit and raw vegetables and Forester bread with the others when there he was on the main screen of the bridge, riding into the clearing with Father John, Ulf, the minstrel and Rocky the squire.

Even Zachary had to admit that the Don was looking like a million bucks. He was all in black leather as usual, with black burnished half armor, shining black boots, and was mounted on a shining black horse.
Irresistible
, Zachary thought,
to any woman whose favorite color is black.

Guinevere was very impressed. ‘Oh ‘tis a most gentle lord, dear Meg. Marry him!’

‘And spend the rest of my life shining his boots? No way!’

‘The Moon hath turned thy senses. Behold him! How sayest thou Zoe?’

‘I sayest he’s hot, Guinevere. Definitely awesome. Excellent.’

‘Then you marry him!’ Meg said and then remembered her duty of care to a student and hastily added, ‘I didn’t mean that.’

‘He’s too old for me anyway,’ Zoe said. ‘Must be 30 at least. Ancient. But if I were your age…’ she began and then saw the look on Meg’s face and stopped. ‘I think he’s perfect for you,’ she finished lamely.

‘This is revenge for all those Wednesday detentions I gave you?’

Outside, the minstrel took the well-polished old 20th century Army bugle which hung round his neck and blew a challenge on it, then Rocky approached the hatchway and hammered on it with his sword hilt.

‘And he doth all in good style,’ purred Guinevere.

Zachary explained to Meg that he had better go and talk to the Don, and Meg explained to Zachary what she would do to him if he agreed to the marriage. Her explanation involved threats involving blunt skinning knives and boiling oil. Zachary said he would take all that on board and into consideration and that he heard what she was saying, which in committee language meant “there there, don’t get excited” and went out to talk to the Don.

As Zachary strolled down the ramp, he was so friendly you would have thought he had come to sell vacuum cleaners. His smile bisected his face. ‘Morning to you m’lord!’ he carolled, ‘Morning Father! Top of the morning to you,’ he added on the principle that priests were always Irish.

‘The terms of the marriage contract,’ the Don said in a crisp, businesslike voice, ‘I’ve had them drawn up.’

Father John reached into the loose left sleeve of his habit and brought out a rolled up piece of paper which he handed to Zachary. The paper was thick, and somewhat coarse, and not as white as the writing paper which Zachary was accustomed to in his own time. He had had a girlfriend once, a second-generation hippie, who had done every craft, and the paper reminded him of the paper which River Skydream, as her parents had called her, had made in ecologically incorrect plastic tubs in her laundry.

Zachary did not attempt to read the paper. He moved closer to the Don and spoke confidentially. ‘There’s a small problem, m’ lord. The Lady Henderson’s playing a bit hard to get and doesn’t actually want to get married straight off, you know?’

‘I can hear every word you say!’ Meg’s voice bellowed from the ship’s loud speaker system.

The Don was delighted to hear his true love’s voice. He looked toward the ship. ‘Lady Henderson! Good morning!’

‘The fact of the matter is…’ Zachary continued.

‘The fact of the matter,’ Meg’s voice bellowed, over-riding what Zachary was trying to say, ‘is that I won’t marry him!’

‘As I said,’ Zachary explained to the Don, ‘playing hard to get.’

‘Is there something in my appearance which displeases the lady?’ the Don asked, puzzled by Meg’s aggressive reaction to the honor of being asked to be his lady.

‘Absolutely not,’ said Zachary, and dropped his voice to a whisper, ‘in fact, my lord, you can take it from me that she finds your appearance very pleasing indeed.’

‘What are you saying, Zachary?’

‘Just man talk, Meg.’

‘You tell him!’ Meg’s voice went on. ‘You tell him this from me! He presumes! He meets me! He decides to marry me! I know where they keep their wives! They keep them locked up in a harem with veils on, right? You tell him if he were the last man on the planet, in the Galaxy, if he looked like Johnny Depp and moved like Fred Astaire, if I were lonely, down and out and desperate, I would never, never, never marry him! Does he understand that?’

On the bridge, Meg ran out of words and steam and slumped in her couch. On the screen she saw that the Don had leant over and whispered to Zachary, who was nodding.

‘What’s that fascist pig saying?’ Meg screamed.

Zachary turned and faced the ship. ‘He said “is that a definite no”?’

‘You tell him he can bet his sweet shining face it is!’ Meg replied in a choked scream. Then she stared. Zachary was whispering to the Don again. After a moment, the Don turned his horse and led the Troll party out of the clearing. Zachary turned and walked up the ramp.

‘What did Zachary say to him, Guinevere?’

‘Say?’

‘I know you could hear what he said. What did he say?’

‘Nay, but I cannot tell thee Zachary’s secrets…’

‘You tell me or I’ll … I’ll dismantle you!’

Zachary walked in, smiling. ‘Solved that problem.’

‘What did you say to him? Tin knickers here won’t tell me.’ Meg got up and approached Zachary in a menacing manner.

‘I said what was needed to get rid of him. I said you were lazy, bad-tempered, couldn’t cook…’ He stopped as Meg slapped his face. ‘Would you mind telling me why you just did that?’

‘I am not lazy.’ She turned to Zoe and Harold. ‘I’m going to the village. I’ve got school to teach.’

‘You’re not supposed to do that,’ Zachary said, ‘The Don…’

‘Our Mother won’t let you!’ shouted Zoe, as Meg stalked off the bridge and out into the corridor.

‘That woman’s got no respect for the High Law,’ said Zachary.

‘Let her walk it off,’ Harold told them. ‘You know? Sometimes you just need to be by yourself? Particularly when you desperately want to marry someone and won’t do it on some little point of pride?’

‘He’s a psychologist now,’ Zoe said to Zachary.

‘I thought that was pretty smart of him,’ Zachary said.

‘Not to mention being an unreconstructed sexist pig,’ said Zoe, and fell on Harold and started to tickle him to death.

But Harold was right in several ways. Meg was starting to feel better for being alone. She strode along the path toward the village, smelling the fresh air with its ever-present hint of woodsmoke, and she was starting to feel her old sane self again. Okay, so the Don had developed a violent crush on her. She had now sorted that out, she had explained the situation to him calmly and reasonably and sooner or later they would meet in more civilized circumstances and maybe even start to build an adult relationship. Then if it took off from there, perhaps there might be some future in it, providing they could get Guinevere fixed and keep the district safe from being turned into its component atoms. She was glad she had had this time alone, and delighted that she had worked all this out. Maybe she and the Don could be friends one day, soon perhaps.
Because he’s so hot
, whispered a voice in her head. ‘Shut up,’ she said to the voice.
Hot hot hot
, replied the voice.