Like they were making us do this really stupid thing. I mean, sure our parents and their parents and all that believed in all that garbage, but I sure didn't buy into it. They could have all the honor and self-sacrifice and sheep they wanted. Not for me. No way.
I'm a modern girl and I can't wait until the day I can leave Camelot. Make tracks. Get gone. This isn't even a backwater. Nothing gets here, nothing at all. And the local restrictions. You'd think we were living in some time before there was even spaceflight or something. Like we didn't have Dover Port twelve klicks away, even if it is nearly a whole day trip by horsecart. Who are they trying to kid? A horsecart. Get real.
No one my age wants to stick around here. At least not any of my friends. Elizabeth and Susannah have already got their appointments to take their Merchant Spacer's Exams. I'm a year younger so I still have to wait until I turn eighteen. As if that will change anything.
Robert Redson already got out and he's the same age as me. I don't know how he did it, exactly, and I miss him like crazy. Not that we were an item. Not even possible.
But Robbie went down to the port one day and never came back. He never wrote to me or told me what happened, but I know how much he hated this place and how nice Mr. Penney was to him. Said that a smart boy like Robbie wouldn't have any trouble finding a spacer berth and a new life in the big universe waiting out there. How Robbie and I used to love to go down to the Port together and dream of the day when we would leave everything about Camelot behind.
Our parents would kill us if they knew how often we go down there to watch the merchant ships come in. Luckily, Mr. Penney thinks it's a good thing for us to know a little more about the civilized universe, and he always invites us in on his shift. Mr. Penney is about the only grownup I think remembers what it's like to be young.
Anyway, if my folks think I'm sticking around after my majority, they're in for one big surprise. So it really bothers me that they're making me do this.
"But all the girls your age on the whole planet are invited," my mother said.
Yeah, right. I know. Like the whole planet is more than twelve villages, three towns and a spread of farms. At least I won't live on a farm. That would be totally the worst! My father is the town silversmith and my mother draws up his designs.
We're pretty well off, really. We have a two-story house with a slate roof and a stone floor and even a rug from somewhere off world on the dining room table. I have eight dresses, five everyday, two for Sundays and a blue velvet one for holidays with embroidered roses at the neck and sleeves. None of the other girls in my class have anything like my clothes, or my house, or anything else.
"I don't know what you've got to complain about," Elizabeth said when we were making our plans to take the Merchant test. "It isn't like you have to muck out the chicken house every day, or eat eggs and bread and cabbage every single day."
Bess makes too big a deal of my family. I think because she was hot on my brother Andrew and admitted that she went too far with him. And then he went off and got betrothed to Annie Carpenter. But I think Bess just went after Andrew because she wanted to live in our nice house and have all the silver plates and pretty clothes she wanted. She never liked Andrew at all, not really. She just got to be friends with me because she wanted to hang around with Andrew. But at least it got me in a position to suggest that she take the Merchant Spacer test and get offworld (and away from my brother).
So the call came around for this competition for the Queen of Love and Beauty and all young virgins (I hate how we're always called virgins, and even if I am it isn't anyone's business, thank you very much) under the age of twenty were welcome to the tournament and to sit on the dais and everything.
It's really stupid. I wouldn't do it. I mean, who wants to be a Queen of Love and Beauty, like it means anything anyway. Just another way for our parents to make us buy into this whole Camelot fantasy they've tried to create.
I really wouldn't do it at all. Except Mother said I could have a new dress made, anything I wanted. And they said Sir Kendrick would be there, and he would be the one to chose the Queen of Love and Beauty.
Now, you think that a bunch of pastoral dorks like the idiots who settled Camelot about a hundred years ago wouldn't have any psychotronics. And in general we don't. But Sir Kendrick is, well, Sir Kendrick. A Mark XXIV Bolo who is all that stands between the fantasy universe of Camelot and the whole real live high-tech universe out there.
I'd never seen Sir Kendrick. I've only heard stories. But I wanted to see the one honest piece of tech in the whole let's pretend fairy tale. Seeing Sir Kendrick alone was enough inducement.
And, of course, there was the dress.
I read the invitation while sitting in the draper's shop. There were at least five girls ahead of me, all with their mothers and sisters, giggling and gossiping with each other. Bunch of Camelot sell-outs, willing to play all the little Camelot games in hopes of marrying well or maybe bringing more money into the family. I thought they were all creeps.
Also, of the five only one could really be counted pretty. Joan Talmadge has a very big nose and no chin, Mary Featherdown is just plain tat and Kathryn Hollis has bad skin. Susan Talmadge isn't too bad to look at, only she has no personality at all. Nope, no competition here. I could safely ignore the losers and read the information instead.
The invitation had been calligraphed by Sister Bridget, who had spent four years despairing of my handwriting. And it had been illuminated in the borders with unicorns and gold crowns and silver spurs, I suppose in honor of our only knight.
Of All the Virgins Young and Faire, the invitation started. I hated when they played around with spelling. Mr. Penney said Camelot was the only Tracing Port in the whole sector that has free spelling.
Of All the Virgins Young and Faire, the gentlemen defenders of Camelot would have the honour of your presence at a tourney on the Fifteenth Day of Maye, in the hope of selecting one of your Glorious Company to be our Queen of Love and Beauty, to Reigne over our poor hearts and effort and to inspire us to greater valour in your gentle eyes.
I read it over twice. All that gross overstatement. And what was a Queen of Love and Beauty supposed to do, anyway? Inspire who to greater valor? There was only one gentleman defender of Camelot and he was rather impervious to feminine charm, I should think.
The rest were just boys with pretensions, or those who couldn't make the rating on the Merchant test and had to do something or go crazy. So they play their little defense games, knowing full well that Sir Kendrick is there to back them up. If and when they deserve backing up, which I suspect is near never.
"Ooooh, that yellow is so pretty," Susan Talmadge said. "Don't you think so, Abigail?"
Hearing my name, I snapped around. Susan Talmadge is a total idiot. I hate yellow. And the fabric she had spread between her hands was sickly and uneven, like a healing bruise.
"I don't know, Susan," I said, trying to be nice to her even if she didn't deserve it. "I think you'd look better in the pink, I really do."
And I was being honest, too, not trying to cut down the competition. I mean, not that they were any competition. But I didn't want to be on a dais and be the only one there who looked even just a little decent.
"But Mary is getting the pink," Susan protested feebly.
"Then why not get one of the prints?" I suggested. "One of those summery flower things with lots of pink in it? And it could have yellow, too, if you really want. But it'll look much better."
"Thank you." Susan seemed so cheered up at the thought, as if she couldn't figure out to ask for something that was right in front of her face.
"What color are you getting, Abigail?" Kathryn asked.
"Oh, I haven't decided yet," I replied. This time I was lying though. I had seen exactly the fabric I wanted and I wasn't about to tell Kathryn. 'What about you?"
"Oh, I think the eyelet," she said. "White over pink. That's so feminine."
They went on talking about patterns and stuff, and my mother was in it as much as the rest of them, but I took out my school slate and began my homework. Not that I care all that much about homework, but it's better than talking to that bunch.
I ignored them while they made their selections and walked out. Honest, I'd done my best, and I couldn't be bothered. Then I showed my mother the burgundy brocade that I had in mind for myself.
"It's too old for this kind of thing," my mother said. "It should be some pastel, or white. You're a young girl, you should look like one."
I groaned. "But I look ugly in those washed out colors. And you know I look great in red. Especially burgundy. It you want, we can do an underdress of white, maybe with some silver. That virginal enough for you?"
My mother couldn't argue the facts. I do look great in jewel colors and I look something like a corpse in anything else. Besides which, it's her fault, I have her coloring and she knows it. I've never seen her wear some baby blue or other appropriate color. Not with that blue white skin and black hair.
I wish I didn't have black hair, that's another thing I don't like. I wish I was a redhead like Joan Talmadge, because then when I got into a temper everyone would just blame it on my hair and leave it be. Now when I get angry I get a rep for being stubborn and bad tempered. When I get off planet, the very first thing I'm going to do is dye my hair bright red.
So I ended up with the red brocade, and a pretty white chiffon with silver stripes, and wide silver ribbon with a pattern of red roses on it. Mother was happily planning the style while we walked the block and a half home.
I was so worn out with playing the nice girl that I was ready to quit the whole farce there and then. Maybe if I told my parents what I really planned to do they'd let me off on all the Camelot games. Next year . . .
But my folks are real Camelot people. We don't have a single electronic in the house, let alone anything post-prehistoric. They'd probably ground me just for having gone over to the Port those few times. I couldn't tell them about going offworld. They wouldn't understand. They never wanted to go anywhere themselves. They're happy just because they can afford this house and have a nice shop and Andrew's getting married, all this stuff that isn't important. They don't understand important things. But what could I expect? They are my parents, after all.
The next few days all the girls at school talked about nothing but the tourney, or, more precisely, about their new dresses for said event. I was half-dead of boredom when Margaret Rose and Peter Smith and Will Davidson invited me to skip school and go along to the Port with them. Will's father was sending him to drop off a shipment of wool and pick up a package that included cloth and genetech equipment for the flock.
It was a beautiful spring day. None of the kids whose parents had planting to do were in school. And some of the sheep families, like Will's, had the kids all working on shearing and lambing and spring sheep chores. Only us town kids who weren't yet apprenticed in trade had time to sit and listen to off-world chemistry and math. So it was no contest. I didn't even think, just threw my pack with the slate and my lunch in the back of the cart and heaved myself in after it.
At least we're not so primitive that the roads are rotten. We passed a road crew working with new 'tronics and good grade plasfalt, repairing the cracks of winter. There was a bit of traffic as we drove. Three other carts at least were filled with fluffy wool bags, and the draper's boy had only one package wrapped in his lap, but that was good embroidered cutwork that he could trade for bolts and bolts of offworld cloths.
Mother sometimes designed cutwork and embroidery pieces when we've got enough silver to do. Technically I'm not apprenticed, but actually she's been teaching me design since I can remember. I'd done a few embroidery and lace patterns in the past year that Mother sold to pieceworkers, and I knew that she had been very excited about my work. She said that when I finished school I would only have to spend a few months to finish the bits of apprenticeship that the guild required, since I had never worked in stained glass or fine jewelry. But that wouldn't take long and Mother nearly promised that I'd make journeyman by the time I was eighteen.
In fact, there were moments when I was being ultra practical and I thought about waiting to finish my apprenticeship until I left for deep space. Even people on modern planets need design. Do we ever know that here on Camelot. That's one reason why we can sell so much, even if it is expensive. Our goods all look good. I figured with the right background I would never have to worry about work offworld. Of course, I only think that way when I'm in a very practical mood and things have been going well with Mother and Dad and I think I could maybe stick it out a couple more months. Most of the time I think I'd rather get away first and figure out what else I'm doing with my life later.
Even though there's always traffic in the spring, there seemed to be more than I remembered from earlier years. When I was ten or so we could drive down nearly to Ashbury before we saw another cart. Now there was practically a solid line of drovers and peddlers making their way to trade with the offworlders.
Maybe it's just that we got populated. That's what they say at school. Life on Camelot is good and we've grown rapidly. But I'd also bet that people want more trade and have more and we're working on becoming part of the bigger economy. Time for isolation is past. Either we join the future or we remain some stupid nowhereville forever.
It was a great day to travel in an open cart, though. The weather was perfect, just warm enough to smell green everywhere, and the fields blazing with young plants. The sky was full of puffy clouds like fleeces Falling out of a bag. I lay back against the soft wool, not thinking too much about anything except how beautiful the day was and how glad I was to be alive and on the road, not stuffed in a classroom with Sister Bridget trying to get my Italic strokes even.
Margaret lay beside me in the back of the cart. The boys were up front driving. I could drive, but I didn't have the experience of a farm kid, and Margaret never did any normal Camelot thing she didn't have to do.
"I'm going," Margaret said to me. "This time for real I'm going to take the test and leave."
That made me open my eyes wide and study her. "But you aren't packed, you don't have anything with you." Then I thought for a moment. "And you're not eighteen, either. They're real strict on their age of majority thing over at the Port."
Margaret sighed "I'll lie. What are they going to do for a few months, anyway? And if I don't go now . . ." She began sobbing into her hands, trying to keep quiet so the boys wouldn't hear.
'What's the matter?" I asked. "Are your parents getting you married off?"
"I hate him," she said, maybe louder than she wanted. "That Simon in the Defenders. He thinks he's just the hottest, strongest, smartest . . . I can't stand him, Ab. I can't do it. I've got to go now."
I rubbed her back and didn't say anything. Margaret was too smart, too good, for Simon. My mother had said something about her making the match because they were afraid that no one would want Margaret with all her crazy ideas. That was when she wanted me to drop Margaret entirely.
"She's not quite all, there, you know," Mother said delicately, like when she tried to tell me about things like sex and menstruation. "She's got, well, problems."
"You mean you think she's not a virgin?"
Mother turned bright red, just the color of cherry paint. "No, no nothing like that," she sputtered. "I only meant that she's got some strange ideas about things. People don't like the way she talks, the way she won't help around the house. She won't weave, won't sew, doesn't do anything useful on the farm. All she does is sit and read. Which would be fine if she were headed for the nunnery. But she's not."
"I'll say," I agreed. Margaret said bad things all the time in religion class. She didn't believe in anything except her books and the Port and away.
So I patted her on the back again and handed her my handkerchief. Margaret had already soaked hers through. "You can wait until you're eighteen, can't you?" I asked. "It's not that long, and your parents can't plan to marry you off before then. Because they're really strict about that age thing at the Merchant Spacers Guild. They won't even let you in the door if you can't prove you're of age."
Margaret blew her nose into my clean hankie. "If I don't get in the guild, I'll stow away," she said. "I'll hide in the Port, maybe Mr. Penney will let me be his assistant until I'm old enough. But I can't stay around Simon. Ugh."
Silently I agreed, but I couldn't approve of her plan. Margaret might be bolder than I am, but I have the common sense. Margaret doesn't have a lick of it. 'What about Peter and Willie? Do they know?" She blinked twice. "Willie knows. I told him that I wasn't coming home. I don't know about Peter. I don't trust Peter."
It wasn't really my business. I just knew that if the boys didn't know, they'd tear apart the port looking for her before we could get home to a decent dinner. "You know," Margaret said after a little silence. "I have this idea. I think if I could work things out, I'll try to help you. Get you out of that stupid tourney. I was so insulted I just couldn't believe the whole thing."
I shrugged. "It's not so bad, really. I mean, just a games day, and we'll see Sir Kendrick. He's got to be worth something."
"That's what our parents say," Margaret said darkly. "But I don't buy any of it. They just want us to stay here, to pretend that this is the center of the universe and that we even have our own Bolo. Have you ever seen Sir Kendrick? Do you know anyone younger than your parents who has?"
Margaret had a point there. "But isn't that the point of the tourney, for us all to see him in action?" I asked.
Margaret laughed. "Are you crazy or what? The point of the tourney, of everything that happens here, is to keep us all in line. To turn us into good little subjects of Camelot. It's even working on you. Look at you, Abigail Once upon a time, you would have been ready to jump with me. Now you're talking like you're going to the damn tourney."
"Well, I am going," I said. "I want to see Sir Kendrick. If he doesn't exist, then at least I'll know for sure. And besides, I'm getting a new dress out of it."
"I can't believe that you'd sell out your whole life, all your friends, for a new dress," Margaret said. "Oh, Ab, I'm sorry. And I won't let it happen, I won't let them destroy you, too. I promise."
I pulled my hand away from her gentle pats. I didn't want her to touch me. Margaret could be unreliable. And promising to keep me away from the tourney, what right did she have, anyway, to live my life. She was making a bad enough mess of her own. And if she did run off, we'd have to wait for her and figure out whether she made her exams and was leaving or if we had to find her to come back with us.
Suddenly the whole day looked like a bad idea. I should have known before I'd said yes. We would get home real late, after dinner, and all be in real trouble and have no dinner besides. All of which did not appeal.
And all because Margaret has to have her way in everything and just won't be reasonable.
We got to Dover Port by midmorning. The Port is surrounded by a high wall, like a city would be if we had one. Like the Castle, the administrative and technological center for all Camelot. Only the wall there is just for show, and because the view from the observation towers is so good that people are willing to pay five pennies each to go there. Lots of extra income for the government and no extra taxes. My parents always take me up one of the observation towers when we go there.
But the wall is the last part of Dover that belongs to Camelot. There was a fine on the road waiting to be checked in to the Port and issued day ID. Not that the Merchanters or anyone else in Dover requires it, but because Camelot doesn't want to make things too easy.
So we waited in line for what seemed like hours. Finally I was too hungry to wait, so I opened my lunch bag. Mother had packed thick sliced cheese and bread and an apple. I ate the cheese with the apple, they taste good that way. Then I traded my bread to Peter for his pear.
Finally we were at the head of the line. One of the Port workers in the pale grey Merchant Guild uniform went over all our papers and slid them under the 'tronic tester to make sure everything was authentic. Then they inspected the wool, and took down our personal data again on another machine that spit back picture IDs with retinal patterns on the back and the date stamped across the whole thing in huge black numbers. It was not a date I recognized. The Port ran on a different calendar than the rest of the world.
From the inside, the Port was fairyland. We were surrounded by three story buildings with blank faces, all made out of the same featureless white concrete. The roads were all paved in black. The only color was from the neon, but even in the middle of the day there was so much colordazzle that it seemed obvious that the blank white buildings had been created as a backdrop for the dense advertising.
I wanted to enter that maze of glitter and light immediately. But Will said we should maybe get rid of the wool first.
"What about your goods?" I asked. "Won't we have to carry them around all day anyway?"
"We'll get a locker at the Port," Will said like he knew what he was talking about. "My father said I could."
"And besides, we could see Mr. Penney right away," Margaret said.
I shrugged as Peter took the reins and turned the old bay away from the glory zone and into the plain white open. Here the buildings were only two stories high and spread far apart. Far in the distance was a huge white open field with a few protrusions. I realized that I was seeing the actual landing zone at the Port from a great distance. It made my heart sing. Margaret sighed and reached out as if to stroke the narrow ships gingerly supported in the docking rig.
We didn't get much chance to look with Peter doing the driving. He turned to the left, to a giant block of a building with "Merchandise Mart" painted in big black letters over a puny door. In front were a zillion carts coming and going. Camelot horsecarts along with the autocarts the onworlders use. People screamed and jostled to get into that one tiny door, and others outside offered black market deals for goods.
No matter how many times I saw it, I was thrilled by the sharp contrast between cultures. And how, oh how it made me long to be one of those competent women in a grey uniform who got up on the autocarts and did everything the men did. I'll bet they had never been invited to parties as "virgins."
"If you don't mind, I think I'll go see Mr. Penney now," Margaret said so quietly I could barely hear her. Then she slipped off the back of the cart and darted between the sellers and buyers in the yard. I watched her veer over to the Guild building, off past the paved mercantile area and past the warehouses.
The Guild building was the only one on the Port painted, a pale grey like the uniforms with the Guild glyph in blazing color across the entire expanse of the front. I stared at it, thinking that perhaps the glyph would work in well to an embroidery design. We could even create a Guild lace, that should sell well enough.
"What's going on?" Peter asked.
"Margaret just went off to see Mr. Penney," I snapped. "You did know about that, right? That she doesn't plan to come back."
"Well," Will said, "we'll have to see if she passes her test. And if she does then she should buy us all a drink. Maybe some Port whisky."
My hands balled into fists before I realized it. Now I understood why the boys had been willing to take Margaret, knowing that she planned to run. Port whisky was bad enough when it came into the alehouse. I didn't want to be alone in a cart with two whisky drunk boys driving.
The whole day was a mistake. I knew it. I was miserable, and it was the first time I had ever felt unhappy at Dover. I always thought of it as fun and exciting, fuel for dreams and the center of my ambition.
Now it was just tawdry and plain. The courtyard with people yelling and trying to advance their places in line was no different from Market Days during St. Anthony Fair. Margaret was gone, like so many or my friends, swallowed up by the giant building with the Guild colors all over the front.
We waited at least two hours, maybe longer, until we got inside and got our goods into a locker. One that could be accessed by an outside code, so we didn't have to enter the building again. The loading dock on the other side of the building was less crowded and we had it easy.
"Why don't we drop in on Mr. Penney?" I found myself asking. Anything to keep the boys out of the bars. They were too young by spacer standards, and besides, I had to drive home with them.
"Yeah," Will agreed. 'We can see how Margaret is doing."
"And if she'll take us out after she's all done, like Robert did," Peter added. Peter had hated Robert, except when Robert bought drinks. I wanted to kick them both.
So we stowed the cart along with the goods in the locker on the loading dock and took off across the courtyard to the Guild hall. We found Mr. Penney in his usual place behind a bank of grey screens in an office with no title on the door. We used to wonder what his title might be, before we realized that it might be better it we didn't know.
"It's very good to see you again," he said warmly, extending a hand. "Abigail, of course, and Will. And you're . . . Peter?"
I was pretty impressed. Peter had only been to the Port twice before, when he was much younger. Mr. Penney was something for names.
"How's Margaret doing?" Peter blurted out. "She said she was going to take her exams today."
"Margaret?" Mr. Penney looked surprised. "I haven't seen her. Isn't she a little young for the exams, though? We won't even look at someone who isn't eighteen, and doesn't she have at least three months or so until her birthday?"
That was kind of creepy. How did he know when our birthdays were? And then I panicked even more. Did he know mine?
"That's just like Margaret," Peter complained. "She knew she couldn't take the exams and she'd come here anyway and now we don't know where she is. And we can't just go off leaving her. She owes us, Margaret does. She probably wouldn't pass the exams anyway, she isn't responsible enough to bother studying."
I hated to agree with Peter, but it was true.
"Look, why don't we go into the shopping district?" I suggested. "If she didn't come here, she would have gone there. So we can find her and then decide when to go home."
"She still owes me a drink, at least," Peter mumbled.
"I could try to track her down," Mr. Penney said. "She isn't in our registry, but I could do a body audit in the strictly spacer areas."
"You can do that?" Will asked, awed.
I was revolted. "Doesn't it bother you?" I asked Mr. Penney. "I mean, don't people have the right to go where they want to go? It doesn't have to be your business."
Mr. Penney looked concerned for a moment, then the shadow passed from his face. "We're spacers, and most of us are on call," he said smoothly. "If a Captain needs to gather a crew quickly, this is the best way to do it."
I bet. I didn't say anything, though. What Mr. Penney said made sense, but I just didn't like the idea that they could track Margaret down if she didn't want to be found.
Mr. Penney turned to his bank of screens. His fingers flew over various combinations of keys and knobs that I didn't understand. Maps and wire-grid diagrams flew by, and I couldn't help but be fascinated. Then Mr. Penney's hands rested and he smiled.
"There she is," he said softly. "In the Black Star cantina." He looked up at us and his face was sad. "Not a place I would recommend anyone go into, let alone an underage kid from Camelot. I don't think you should go there."
We left the Guild Hall. Of course we were going to go there. Saying it was bad was like telling Peter this was the place of his dreams. Peter always likes to think he's bad even when he's just obnoxious. I don't get it.
Honestly, I didn't want to go to the Black Star. I liked Margaret, but it sounded to me like she was up to something stupid. I didn't want to get involved, myself. I just wanted to go home and eat dinner and pretend to my parents that I'd been in school all day. But of course we had to go to the bar and find Margaret and make sure that she wasn't planning to come home with us now that she was dead drunk and would puke all over me the whole way home.
The Black Star was way down past the heavy neon. There were a few streets that wound around the back of Dover Port, where the hookers and the croupiers lived. A couple of late night groceries dotted the residential buildings, and only a few cheap monocolor signs indicated a place of business.
The Black Star didn't even have that much. It had windows painted out black and the name written in silver over the darkened glass. We passed it twice wandering the back alleys, and only when someone stumbled out drunk and singing did we notice it at all. Peter smiled and we went in.
To be very honest, this den of offworld evil wasn't much different from the alehouse back home. Oh, there was black glitterdust on the walls and ceiling, the bar and tables were made of mirrors, but that was just gloss. The smell of cheap stout and cheaper whisky mingled with stale perfume and smoke. I was very disappointed. I'd expected something really dangerous looking, maybe with armed guards sitting with their boots up on the bar ready to blow my head off as we came in the door. No such luck.
There weren't even many patrons yet, except a fairly large group in the back who were making all the noise that the rest were not. They were obviously all to that stage of inebriation where they couldn't stand but could still sing and swear. I couldn't hear anything over their constant rendition of songs I didn't know.
I only wanted out of there. And then Margaret stood up with the crowd in the back and waved us over. We went. Even Peter realized that he had better be on good behavior with these folk, and he kept his expression blank and his walk respectful.
"These are my shipmates," Margaret said, her words so badly slurred that I had to think twice to make them out. "I got an apprentice berth. Lucky, huh? No tests, no age requirement. I just signed the papers."
"Margaret, you can still come home," I told her, hoping all the time that she wouldn't. I didn't want her to be sick all over me, and she didn't look like she could handle the rough cart ride back.
"No!" she said, flinging her arm up and to the side in negation. She nearly hit one of her new crewmates in the head. "I'm going. And I'm coming to get you, to that tourney. End the restrictions, end the whole thing."
"Let's get out of here," Will said.
"I want a beer," Peter protested.
"Then you can get a beer at some other establishment," Will said. "We're not staying. Margaret made her choice. It's not our business anymore."
I wanted to get out of that place, and hoped only that Peter would give in decently. There was nothing at all going on here. For all its bad reputation, the Black Star was pretty dull. But I couldn't look at Margaret, already wearing a bright yellow jumpsuit with the word "apprentice" stenciled across her chest. I wondered where her dress had gone.
But Peter looked disappointed and followed Will. I knew that he was going to say the same thing I would say—yeah, I've been to the Black Star. Well, I wasn't afraid. Of course, it was early, but it was just a bar, you know? No big deal Only it was a big deal.
We didn't stop at another bar. Instead we went in to one of the little late-night groceries and bought packaged salami and cheese already sliced on bread. Peter got a six-pack and we paid and went off with our supper. I hoped we'd be home in time for real dinner, but from the look of the sky I didn't think it likely. The sun was already resting on the horizon and the all white buildings of Dover Port reflected the red/pink/apricot tinge of light.
It was faster going back. Maybe the horses were better in the evening cool, maybe it was that there was so little traffic, maybe it was our collective will to get home to where we didn't have to think about Margaret.
I sat alone in the back of the cart. It wasn't nearly so comfortable as it had been when it was filled with fleece. And I tried not to envy Margaret the courage to leave, to wander off and talk someone into taking her on without Guild papers.
But I didn't have any luck. If only I had the nerve I could have done it. I'm smarter than Margaret by a good bit, and I can be charming when I choose. And if I'd have any nerve at all it would be me that was free of all this ancient trapping, and not returning to a two story house with a shop in the front downstairs and the only 'tronics in the lights and the heat service. And the plumbing. I hadn't seen any offworld plumbing yet.
My parents didn't say anything when I got in late. I took the dish of warmed over stew that was waiting for me and ate it all, even though I didn't think I was that hungry. Maybe it was just because I was all confused and sad and jealous of Margaret at the same time.
The next day Mother asked me about a device. "All the young ladies have to have a sleeve or some token to give to their Defender," she said. "I remember when I did it. I must have been a little younger than you, and my older brother had disappeared at the Port. I guess he's a Merchant Spacer now, but I haven't seen him in all that time."
I looked at her, astounded. No one ever went off-world in her generation. I knew that. All the old people believed in those virtues and everything and they never ever did things like that. Let alone my own uncle. If I had an uncle. I figured Mother was just letting me know that she knew about yesterday, about Margaret, and that it just wasn't going to change anything.
"Anyway," she went on, "you have to come up with something lovely. Original. That will help you in the competition, you know. I know you'll be the prettiest girl there, but showing off your talent doesn't hurt."
"What should I make?" I was completely stymied.
Mother giggled. I swear she did. "Something that Sir Kendrick might like to tie around his turret," she said. "He might not fall in love with human ladies, but he does appreciate aesthetics."
I thought about that one for a long time. And I began to embroider a cloth belt and embellish it with beads and bits of stone that my father said weren't fine enough for jewelry or plate. I even enjoyed the work, knowing full well that none of the other girls had either my skill in design or my resources. I could even run silver thread through the pattern, which made it look rich. I never thought I would enjoy embroidery this way, but it was something to create and it was quiet and well paced. And it filled up my mind so I didn't have to think about Margaret and the Port and offworld, so I didn't have to think about the decisions that were just ahead.
It was real Camelot time, each day just like the one before it. All the rhythms of the sun and crops, of water and wheat, carried us. My own inner rhythms, my impatience to be gone, had somehow been swallowed up by the embroidery project and the new dress and all the little details of living. So I did not realize how time passed until it was Wednesday and that Saturday was the tourney.
My dress was ready, hanging in Mother's press. I had seen it on and it transformed me into some fantasy princess of the old days, when Camelot was a place on Earth and men fought each other to the death for someone like me. Honestly, I loved the feeling.
The belt was not quite ready, but it would be done soon, very soon. I concentrated on it over the last few days the way I concentrated on a new design piece, or something I was doing for one of Mother's clients. I thought of when I would become a journeyman designer, before I would leave forever and design stained glass for starships and embroideries for spacer uniforms.
And then the day of the tourney was on us. I didn't feel real, dressing up in the white and silver under dress, and then toe slit burgundy brocade over that. It looked rich and quite adult, and in the mirror I didn't look like me at all. Mother adjusted the ribbon with a pearl drop on my forehead, and threw the veil over it all.
"Now keep it neat," she admonished me as we left the house.
Dad had hitched the buggy, not the cart to the horse, so we rode in style. The road was far more crowded than it had been going to the Port. Indeed, there were even some spacer vehicles in the throng.
I stared at them, for once grateful for the veil so I wouldn't get caught. Mother held the belt I had made on her lap, not examining it or unfolding it the way I would. She likes to keep work neat before turning it in to a client, a thing she says I have to learn.
The market grounds were beautiful, I thought. No match for the neon of the Port, of course, but still there were multihued pavilions and pennants fluttering in the light breeze. And there were booths for various vendors with ribbons flying from the top, as good as a market day but more festive. And everyone from town and all the surrounding villages and countryside was dressed in their finest, so the muddy grass was dotted with groups in bright moving colors.
Dad took care of the buggy and horse while Mother rushed me off to one side, her invitation clutched in one hand. "This way," she told me. "This is where the young ladies are."
There was nothing at all I could do but follow. The crush was near threatening, with the wall of people getting thicker as we neared the canopied platform with all the young women of the area. Mother thrust me up the steps and I found myself among them, no one saying anything at all.
What could we say to each other? These were not the girls I had gone to school with. These were strange creatures in splendid confections of fabric, all uncomfortable as the strangers who had been our neighbors stared up at us. Trying to figure out if a special day and dress could really make a town girl into a Queen of Love and Beauty, if only for the afternoon.
Mother had been right, I was the only one in such a dark jewel color. Several of the girls were in white, and with the many others in pale pink, half the dais looked like a flutter of cherry (blossoms. The effect, I had to admit, was stunning.
All our devices, sleeves, belts and banners, were laid out over the high fence on the far side of the field. So that the competitors and audience could see them clearly, I supposed. We surely couldn't. Though that did cut down on bickering over who did the best embroidery work and who couldn't keep her threads straight on the back.
It was really boring. I knew it was going to be boring, but I didn't know how long we were supposed to wait around for anything to get started. I wouldn't have minded so much if we could have wandered around the booths on the Market field, or if we could gossip. But that wasn't possible because everyone I'd want to gossip about was right here. So I had to make do with simply watching. At least there were chairs that we could use, though they crushed the more delicate dresses. Some of the girls were doomed to stand.
It was well past noon when the loudspeakers in the trees gave off the trumpet blast indicating that really, something was almost ready to happen and people ought to finish up their purchases and start to drift over. Which meant it was past one when the herald announced the Parade of the Defenders to honor their ladies. I yawned before I pulled back my veil.
They came in from the open side of the fence, each one on a high-spirited horse, each of them dressed as sensibly as were the girls on the dais. I recognized Piers Goodman and William Spencer. And Simon, who didn't look nearly so vacuous and stupid with all the others in the field. They formed up in a single rank.
Then we could feel him before we saw him, Sir Kendrick Evilslayer, who was the biggest thing in Camelot. I had not realized how big that was. I could fit in the space between his treads. I could easily believe that this being, this Bolo, could crush cities.
He was better than anything at the Port, even. His speakers were playing something lovely with a flute, and the silver spurs of his knighthood glittered atop his turret, along with his other battle honors. He rode into the tourney field as if he meant it, as if this little ragged imitation of a tournament was grand and noble and not to be taken lightly.
"The gentlemen in attendance shall each take a token from the fence, and shall compete for the honor of the lady whose device he wears. At the end, the gentleman who wins the most events shall have the honor of crowning his lady the Queen of Love and Beauty."
The herald on the loudspeaker gave out the rules. There were contests in archery, running, swimming, fighting (electrified, non-contact only) and the composition of a poem to his lady.
This was going to be dull dull dull, I figured. Like having to stand around and cheer on the boys at school. Why did I always have to sit on the side and cheer them on while they had all the fun and all the glory? Offworld that never happened, I was sure of it.
Now all the Defenders, Sir Kendrick among them, went to the fence and chose their devices. One thing on that method—the ugly girls had as much a chance as the pretty ones, and the ones like me were up as much as any little Camelot lady. I figure that if someone really wanted one of the Defenders to choose her, she would let him know what her device would be.
All around me on the dais, girls yelled and went silent and pale as their devices were chosen by Defenders. Or left on the fence. Like mine.
Not that I'd care if it was never taken. I didn't want to be any Queen of Love and Beauty. There was nothing, nothing at all in Camelot I wanted. This was all a farce, pretending that we had some culture, some life worth living. If I wanted to do anything real at all I was going to have to leave. Margaret had been right.
My belt still hung on the fence, the largest and most intricate of the pieces. All the Defenders had chosen their token, and now Sir Kendrick went before them. I held my breath, not really hoping. After all, what did I want with a Bolo, right? I'd seen him, that's what I'd come for. But he was one more part of the whole Camelot package, and I didn't want any of it.
He chose my belt. Maybe because it was the only thing long enough to tie around the nozzle of his Hellbore, maybe he just liked the design or the colors. I never did ask.
I gasped. I was Sir Kendrick's Lady. Me. And I couldn't care less about Camelot or the way anything was done on Camelot. I was leaving as soon as I could That was final.
Sir Kendrick came over to the dais and lowered his guns toward me. "May I come up and ride you?" I asked, wondering if he could even hear me.
"My Lady's desire is my command," he said.
It was not easy to climb onto his fender in my fine dress. Someone eventually brought over a ladder so I could attempt it with some dignity.
What joy, what freedom riding on the fender of a Bolo. It had looked giant from the platform. From up here I could easily believe that I could touch the clouds.
This is how it must feel on a starship, I thought. This is power. I felt like a goddess, omnipotent. I could see over the fence, past the village and the competition fields. I could make out the shape of the monastery huddled apart in the middle of its fields. I could make out the double line of brown-habited brothers filing through the cloister into the chapel. And in that great vision, with the infinite power of the greatest fighting machine ever conceived in the mind of humanity, I knew there was nothing, nothing ever, I could not do.
They were setting up for the archery competition. I thought watching the various games was boring. I'd watched them all before, and it's only fun if I get to play. So I looked out over the horizon, over the stretch of citron field of dainty new wheat and the stunted, gnarled apple trees on the hills.
And I saw them coming. Spacers. In autocarts, wearing their tight-fitting uniforms and carrying power arms.
For a moment, shocked, I assumed they were merely coming to join in the festivities. But there was something about the line of carts, the stance of the free riders, the presence of weapons, that didn't fit the image of peaceful neighbors.
"Offensive light attack force approaching at eight o'clock. My orders are to destroy immediately," the Bolo beneath me rumbled.
And suddenly I was scared. My brain froze in my skull. There had never been any problem with the Port. Spacers never came into Camelot. What could they want with our lives? I couldn't think.
"All personnel shall stay in the current enclosure," Sir Kendrick ordered. "This is possible intrusion. It is my duty as Knight-Defender of Camelot to protect this population. You will not move from your present position." Then he rolled over to the dais. "My lady," he said very elegantly.
"I'm going with you," I said. How could anything hurt me when I was with Sir Kendrick. I was invincible, untouchable, immortal. There was nothing at all to fear.
"My lady, it is my duty to protect you. And to serve you," he said.
"But a true knight obeys his lady," I reminded him, wishing now that I had paid more attention in Sister Claire's course on The Literature and Practice of Courtly Love.
"That is so," Sir Kendrick agreed. And he turned and rolled out of the enclosure and onto the open road where eight autowagons at least of motley clad spacers approached the tourney grounds.
And then we were in front of them looming over their path like a mountain. I looked down from my high perch on the fender. And I realized that I recognized at least one of the faces in spacer's gear. This was the band Margaret had joined. And there she was, right in front, just as she promised. To save me from the miseries of dull old Camelot. She looked miserable.
"You told me it was a myth," one of the spacers was saying. "You told us there was no Bolo. And that there would be plenty of merchandise ready." The spacer who spoke was familiar, too, but it took me a moment to recognize him outside his Port clothes. Mr. Penney.
Margaret looked like she was about to cry. "I never saw a Bolo," she said. "Not before now."
"Target acquired," Sir Kendrick said. "Destroy the despoilers of Camelot."
The vibration under me changed as anti-personnel guns fired two bursts. The second autowagon exploded in a wash of fire.
Spacers abandoned their vehicles and ran. Sir Kendrick swung his tower and both fore and aft guns blazed in rapid succession. And brightly clad offworlders lay smoking dead, dotting the road and the new field of wheat.
"Wait, wait," I yelled as the turret swung again, this time bearing down on Margaret and Mr. Penney.
"My mission is to destroy the Enemy. I have never failed in my mission," Sir Kendrick stated flatly.
"No," I yelled. "Your mission is to protect Camelot.
We need to know what's going on. We need to question them."
There seemed to be a jolt in Sir Kendrick's thought that I felt as a physical thing, though I know that's not possible. "Insufficient data," he said. "Mission cannot be achieved without proper data. I have never failed in my mission."
Margaret was crying, sobbing loudly as tears ran down her face. I saw that she was not armed the way the others had been. And that Mr. Penney was pointing his power rifle at her.
"You said there were no defenses," he growled. "Just boys with arrows. You are responsible for this."
He was going to shoot. I could feel it. Looking at Margaret with her eyes squeezed shut and tears on her lace, I knew that she was dead already.
Time became still and perception became hyper-aware. I could smell the laser-burn in the air, the smoldering of fabric and flesh. And I whispered, "Protect Margaret. Protect Camelot."
Laser tight flashed and Mr. Penney lay in the road, a small black burn hole right between his eyes. I stroked Sir Kendrick's turret.
Then I looked down at Margaret. "What the hell were you doing?" I asked.
But she only sobbed harder. I reached down a hand. I couldn't lift her to the Bolo's fender, but she climbed on top of the abandoned autowagon, and from there she could scramble up the two last treads to the fender. I pulled her up the last few feet and put my arms around her as she collapsed against me.
"Mission accomplished," Sir Kendrick said. "Camelot is safe."
We returned to the enclosure to find that no one had moved in our absence. The archery butts were still only half-set, and the Defenders were as quivering silent as the few nuns who had come down to sell honey. Margaret was still quivering against me as we faced the crowd.
"Danger has been averted," Sir Kendrick announced. "The Enemy has been vanquished. Camelot is safe."
"No," Margaret said, and stiffened in my arms. Her voice was barely above a whisper, hoarse over her sobs. No one could hear her but me. "No, we're not safe. None of us. I didn't know, I didn't know," she sobbed.
"Know what?" I demanded.
"It was all a lie," she sobbed. "Everything. The Guild. Mr. Penney. Our friends who left, who went offworld. They weren't accepted into the guild. They were sold to pirates and mining companies and brothels on Miranda. Bess and Robbie, all of them. And me. They made me do it, I swear, Ab. I swear." And she collapsed in a heap on Sir Kendrick's fender.
I shuddered slightly and called for a ladder. Someone, Simon I think, came up and got Margaret. I got down by myself, all distracted and confused.
I could hardly credit what Margaret said. Why would places far more advanced than Camelot need slaves? Weren't there machines to do all the work?
But something in my instinct told me that Margaret was telling the truth. Mr. Penney always so friendly and encouraging, but also always telling us not to tell our parents. And his stories about other worlds, their wealth and opportunity, just seemed too good to be true.
And then I thought about the way Mr. Penney had leveled that rifle at Margaret and I knew she wasn't lying. Maybe it was just cheaper to lure kids offworld than to build psychotronics. And some functions still required humans. I flinched at the memory of the word brothels, but it all made so much sense. It had always been the attractive ones among the disaffiliated that Mr. Penney said had the best chances.
I had wandered far from the Market area while trying to figure out what I had to do. I hugged my elbows close, thinking how ready I had been to jump, to run. It made me angry, made me want to kill everything and everyone.
And I had the power to do that. I was Sir Kendrick's lady. I could tell him the story and we could burn the Guildhall to the ground. Raze the Port. Make them pay for my friends, make them pay for my own stupid, dying dreams.
I had the power to destroy absolutely everything in the whole world.
I turned and ran to Sir Kendrick. He was still near the ladder and it was easy for me to climb up and jump on his fender. He could destroy anything, keep us safe from exploiters forever.
But as I caressed his shining turret, I realized that he couldn't keep us safe from ourselves. Our ignorance could not be blasted away with a Hellbore, and the lies we told ourselves couldn't be burned by a laser.
Robbie, Bess, Margaret, how many others? It must be a very profitable business. And on how many other planets did they play this scam? Anger replaced fear, and I knew they had to pay. The blood on the road wasn't enough for the lies and the pain and the outrage.
I had never questioned the thought that all adults were free. I had heard of other concepts in school, of course, but on Camelot there is only one way to live and one truth. And now I began to see that it wasn't so bad or so backwater as I had thought.
I stood silently on the fender of the Bolo for a long time, until the sun turned the sky ruddy with nightfall.
"Let's show them their dead," I whispered. Sir Kendrick rolled.
We had several of the Defenders pile the dead into their autowagons and hitch the wagons into one long chain. Sir Kendrick pulled them along to the Port. We arrived by early evening when the Port doors were shut.
This was no problem for a Bolo. He hardly slowed down as his massive treads flattened the Port wall.
The glitter of neon reflected off his shiny armored body ominously, and suddenly the blaze of color against the dark no longer looked so romantic. It was a lure, that was all.
"Destroy the Enemy," he said. "Defend Camelot."
"But how do you destroy thought?" I asked. "How do you destroy ignorance?"
Sir Kendrick didn't even hesitate. "Provide useful data."
Obviously. But who would provide it? Margaret was never the most credible witness.
"I suppose we should bring the bodies to the Guildhall," I said. "I can't think of anywhere else to dump them."
We brought the eight wagon loads of dead, pulled by a massive Mark XXIV. Sir Kendrick rolled onto the landing field. Next to his bulk the ships seemed fragile and vulnerable.
And then I knew exactly what to do. And I began to giggle as badly as any of the Talmadge girls.
"Spacers," I yelled. Some came over, and then Sir Kendrick played a flourish from his speakers, and repeated my words.
"We are the Defenders of Camelot and we know that there has been an evil thing here. Young people have been lured into slavery on distant worlds, being told that they could become merchant spacers. If you do not want us to blow your ships to shreds and leave you stranded on Camelot forever, you will all go into every school and church and village grange and you will teach the young people of Camelot about the other worlds in the quadrant and how people really live. And how good life is here. I always thought that wall was to keep us from leaving. Really it was to keep you from seeing how good it is here."
So now Sir Kendrick is a fixture at the Port, and here I am in Mr. Penney's old office, chief Port Administrator. I have two school groups touring today with a lecture series on Miranda and Llorda, and a new Camelot Space Trade building to dedicate and a group of Defenders who are too busy checking imports and running our segment of sector linknet that none of them ever has had time for another tourney.
So I was quite surprised to see an invitation on my desk today, beautifully calligraphed and illuminated with pictures of Sir Kendrick and my belt and spaceships picked out in silver around the border.
All ye goode citizens of Camelot, hail, it begins. We invite the honour of your presence at the tenth anniversary celebration games, where we shall endeavor to compete with those people of Camelot in the greate skills of running and swimming and riding. And we shall be pleased to find from among those ladies younge and faire a Queen of Love and Beauty.
I tossed the invitation in the trash. I hate it when people screw around with spelling like that.