Adventure Magazine Cover — page 68: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

66 There was murmuring again, but no ‘words audible. Fflur’s lips were white with pressure, and her eyes blazed as Caswallon turned to face her: “Mother of my sons,” he said, “this Skell was once a friend of mine. He helped when Lunden burned. He helped rebuild it. Shall I slay?” _ Fflur answered him at last, thin-lipped, breathing inward: “You will never listen to me! be your decision!” “Way!” he answered, laughing, ‘“‘you are always right! What shall I do with him?” - “Do what you will! You are the king!” she answered angrily. = Caswallon laughed again. “True. J should not forget I am the king!” “You let other men forget it!” Fflur retorted. “Skell shall remember!”’ Caswallon turned from her and looked straight at Tros. “Brother Tros, you have told me you will build a ship, for which you will need a great crew. Just now you have made me a prom- ise to do whatever I choose to ask. Was that in good faith?” “Tt was my spoken word,” said Tros; but he answered guardedly—he did not care to be public executioner, even of such a treach- _ @rous sneak as he knew Skell was. Then take Skell! He is your slave! Use him! Set him on an oar-bench and sweat the treason out of him! Work manhood in, for that must come from outside, since what he had of it he seems to have lost!” Fflur laughed, high-pitched and cynical. skell looked at Tros as a tied steer eyes the butcher. “Slave?” he said, wetting his lips with his tongue. ‘I was born free. Oar-bench?”’ “Aye!” Tros answered. “Loose him, lest his arms grow weak! I will keep that promise,” he said, grinning at Caswallon. “His hands shall blister and his hams shall burn. Jf he has freedom in him, he shall earn it!’ So they loosed Skell, and the Northmen took charge of him with low-breathed in- Ssults, despising him as neither Norse nor Briton, but a traitor to both races, speaking both tongues. Tros, arms behind him, Stared at the Gaulish woman, who was Kneeling in the mud. “Winer” he wondered. “Mine? By Pluto, what should a seaman do with you?” It must Adventure And Caswallon chuckled, waiting. “The woman tried to smile, but fear froze her again when Helma stood beside Tros, taking his hand to remind him of her rights. “T need no wench to wait on me!” said Helma. “You shall go to Cesar!” Tros said finally. “You shall take my message to him. | “You shalt say: ‘Whatever Tros needs that Cesar has, Tros will take without Ceesar’s leave or favor!’ “Bid him send me no more slave-women, but guard himself against a blow that comes! And lest you lie about that message, woman, I will chisel it on bronze and rivet that to a chain around your neck!” “So! Then this business is over,” said Caswallon. “The druids wait. Send your Northmen back to Lunden with your pris- oners, Tros. We must make haste.” He signed to the Northmen to take the prisoners away, and offered Tros and Helma places in the chariot beside him, then shouted to the team and drove like a mad- man through the mist. He said not another word until the horses leaped a stream and the bronze wheels struck deep into the far bank; then, when they breasted a mist-wreathed hill beneath dripping branches and he had glanced over-shoulder to make sure Fflur followed, and Orwic, and a score of mounted men behind their chariots, he tossed speech to Tros in fragments: “Too many druids, not enough king! If druids keep me waiting, men say ‘Hah! even Caswallon must cool his heels!’ But if I keep them waiting, they say ‘Caswallon is irreligious!’- Nevertheless, unless I king it carefully there will be neither king nor druids! ‘“‘And the druids know that. They must wait for me. And I think that dawn is a better time for funerals than midnight, be- cause at dawn men hope, whereas at night they are afraid. “So, Brother Tros, you shall attend your father’s funeral after all, and all my people shall believe you are my friend. I will bid the druids thank you that Lunden wasn’t plundered while they prayed! On yon horses. Ho, there! Hi! Hi-yi! Which is the hardest, brother Tros, to king it or to captain a ship at sea?” But Tros did not know the answer to that question; he only knew which of the two tasks he himself preferred. Gomicbooks.com