Chapter Four
The horses were ready. They danced through the dusting of snow on the trail. Lib and Peral chose a mark and raced to it. Peral's palomino beat Lib's big bay mare, but not by much. The Doctor smiled. The horses hadn't been the only ones ready to leave.
They left the lands where hardy people hurriedly prepared for the harshness of winter and passed into lands rich in trade and basking in the sun. A season passed in the journey. It had been nearly uneventful. Inns by the road were pleasant, if you didn't mind open air plumbing and a few fleas. Someone attempted to get acquainted with Lib, in the wrong way, just often enough she didn't complain constantly of getting out of practice.
Their fair skins, size and the strange animals they rode attracted attention. Their rich clothing and the jewels they wore did not. Except for the amulet. Once in a while someone would see it and look at the Doctor very closely. But they, like the minstrel, knew no more than; they'd heard of it somewhere, it had some meaning. In the south.
They rode into the port city of Maribetha on a bright spring morning. Lib wanted to shop in the bazaar. She still had a great many of the gold and silver coins she'd found in her saddlepack. The smell of spices and the noise of the crowd excited her. They found an inn and, as soon as they had gotten the horses stabled, she went shopping. She came back mad.
"They were being SOLD! Their father was selling them!"
Peral looked at the two girls carrying Lib's bundles and sighed. "So you bought them. The question is, what are you going to do with them He understood her impulse, but she didn't seem to have realized the consequences of her action. "You can't set them free. They have nowhere to go. Their father was selling them to pay his debts. They expected it. He had too many daughters. He could sell them and be selective as to who got them or wait and have them seized and sold in the public market. You can't free them until you make them ready for freedom."
"You're right, Peral. I just got so mad. Their father was having them dance for the crowd and telling everyone what good slaves they'd make. It never occurred to me he might be trying to find a good home for them. I wonder what the Doctor will say when he finds out I bought a pair of illiterate, teenage, slave girls. And we have to take them with us. Why don't I think he'll be happy with me?"
He wasn't. He'd shouted at her for a few moments; but, when Amda and Nemir began to cry, he threw up his hands and left the room. The two girls developed an incredible crush on him the next day. He had presented each with sturdy clothes to wear and a fine derkine to ride. He decided his big mistake had been smiling at them, but they'd been so happy.
Lib asked Peral for help. She wasn't about to tell the Doctor the two girls had asked if they were to be shared with him. "You know where to start. Teach them to read." Peral was struggling not to laugh. "Teach them to defend themselves. And, PLEASE, teach them to cook." He followed the Doctor's lead and surreptitiously dumped his dinner.
Amda and Nemir understood the learning to cook part. The reading and self-defense, they did not. The Doctor took care of the reading by performing one of his, 'Now where did he get that froms?' and reading Kipling's Just So stories to them. The self-defense part was harder. They'd been raised with, "If there are no men to defend you, you are lost." Lib had nearly given up hope. Oh, they tried, but they really didn't believe they could do the things she showed them. One evening at an inn that changed.
A scarred and rather sinister man grabbed Nemir. Lib spun to do something about it., but the Doctor stopped her. They watched as Amda waded in to help her little sister. The two flipped the man and left him sitting dazed in the floor. They giggled the entire time they carried the packs in and their eyes sparkled. They really began to learn the next day.
"The training they had as dancers has given them the best balance and smoothest movement I've ever worked with. They're already developing their own style."
"Yes, and they're learning to cook." Lib threw a chunk of dirt at him. Peral ducked and laughed. She had spent hours trying to get the girls not to add handfuls of spice to everything. "They're learning. Now you've got to teach them how to think for themselves."
The Doctor set down his plate and began to pace. "Peral's right, Lib, but we have to be careful. New ideas can change a world even more than new technology. You're going to have to help them fit all this new knowledge into the framework of their society. Right now they see themselves as the luckiest of slaves, learning new things because it's what their owner wants. They eat with us if we ask them. They sleep by the horses and derkine. They feel they belong to us not among us."
"Doctor, let's give them a show." The Doctor stopped pacing and raised his eyebrows at Peral. "Turn slavery into duty. They're women and it'll be pretty unusual for this world, but why not let Lib train them as squires? We'll give them some kind of ceremony to change them from slaves to student squires."
"Peral, that's GREAT!" Lib was ecstatic. "When I get through with them, any knight who doesn't want them will be a fool. Doctor, you have to officiate at this thing. Peral, you do the go-between stuff and I'll present them."
"Now, WAIT just a minute! I'm not going to officiate in any SHOW!"
"Of course you will, Doctor. You're the 'white knight'. Nobody else will do. Do you want to write your lines or do you want me to?"
The Doctor looked at Lib for a moment, shook his head, groaned and sat down. "If I have to do this, I'll write my own lines. Thank you."
They chose a moonlit night amidst a grove of palms. The Doctor held his lance and sword. Lib presented Amda and Nemir. Peral questioned them and the Doctor instructed them. He gave them an oath to swear. They swore to follow only a knight they judged to be worthy. To aid him and defend him. To use their learning and judgment in his behalf. To be faithful to the principles of honor and justice.
"Doctor, I do not understand." Amda was riding beside him. Things had changed greatly since the night they made the girls 'squires in training'. "Peral and Lib say you are a knight and they follow you, but they are neither squire nor knight."
"They are my companions. My friends. They travel with me because they wish to. I wouldn't lead them into danger if the choice had been mine to make."
"Yes, Doctor. Lib has told us. She says it is how we will know our knight. We will find someone who cannot stand by and see evil flourish. And he will not ask the aid of another, but seek to take all the blows that fall upon himself. We will decide to "follow him around and see to it nothing sneaks up on him". The choice will also be ours to make. She has also told us we may not choose you, because you "are taken". Doctor, where is your squire, Liberty, and why is she not here with you?"
He smiled. Lib had foreseen the girls deciding he was the only knight worth squiring for, and had provided a reason for them to pick someone else. "I left her rebuilding a city and protecting its people. It was what needed to be done."
"Lib said you would accept no other squire in her absence. Nemir and I would not seek to take her place, but, since she is not with you, we ask you let us share her duties between us."
The Doctor wasn't really sure what a squire's duties were on Laeth. Lib had done some research so she'd know what to teach them, but he hadn't paid much attention. He wondered what he was getting himself into when he said, "I don't think Liberty would mind, but only for the journey."
"They won't even let me take care of my own HORSE! Last night they wanted to help me with my BATH!" He glared at Lib and Peral. They were laying across the table laughing.
Lib gasped out, "It's part of a squire's duties on this world. They do everything from caring for a knight's mount to scrubbing his back. I gave you an out, Doctor. You did this one to yourself."
He said rather sheepishly, "Well, she just looked so eager, I didn't want to disappoint her."
All that evening at the inn, Peral and Lib would look at him and suddenly start to snicker. But Lib did have
a talk with Amda and Nemir and explained the duties the Doctor did NOT expect a squire to perform.
They heard another minstrel sing of them. He sang a verse that named the amulet Weros. Truth. He had learned the song in the south. They rode south.
They were ordered to the palace. A troop of guards met them at the edge of the city and delivered the message. Since the guards were polite and dressed as an honor guard, not a war party, they accepted the invitation.
They were pleased they had the escort. The cheering mob that thronged the streets would have overrun the five of them. The Doctor removed another flower from his hair and wondered what the mob was expecting them to do.
The palace was ornate and beautiful. They were shown to a suite of rooms where servants bustled about. The Doctor was informed the sultan would receive them that evening. Amda and Nemir were in heaven. They were in the palace of the Sultan of Karishdan. He was known as a wise and powerful ruler. His people called him 'The Light of Heaven' and were fanatically loyal. Many of them were freed slaves. The sultan did not allow slavery in his realm.
"Amda, do you mean you'd have been free the moment we reached the borders of this country?"
"Yes, Peral, but we would not have known how to be free. We would have taken the name servant and remained slave."
Baths were drawn for them and the Doctor shouted the servants out of his. He smiled when he heard Peral yelling, "GET OUT!" at several people who had followed him into his.
"I don't get it, Doctor. How did they know we were coming?" Lib held up the emerald green gown and measured it against herself. It had been made for her. No woman in this realm equaled her over one hundred seventy-five centimeters height.
"I think we shall find out soon. We've been prepared for." He was wearing a white tabard with a red dragon rampant embroidered on it. He'd found it, a soft white tunic, and hose and shoes, awaiting him at the conclusion of his bath. Amda and Nemir had latched onto his breastplate and boots with glee. They were finally going to get to polish them.
"You might as well put it on, Lib." Peral had also found clothes awaiting him. He was dressed in a sapphire blue tunic with the flowing sleeves common in the southern realms. "I know how you feel about skirts, but someone's gone to a lot of trouble to make those. They're nowhere near as cumbersome as the layers of petticoats most of the women on this world wear."
"I've wondered about that. It's usually only in northern climates women wear layers of petticoats."
"I know the answer to that one, Doctor." Peral grinned. "The sultan's mother was from the north. She started a fashion. I think the sultan ordered skirts for Lib to keep the women from all deciding to wear men's clothes."
Lib grabbed a piece of fruit from the basket on the table and threw it his direction. "I'd have hit you with it, but you look too pretty to cover in juice. Now, get out while I put this on." She didn't chase the serving women away. They seemed to know how everything fastened and what to do with her hair. She eyed herself in the burnished metal mirror and decided she liked the effect. Perhaps, skirts weren't quite as bad as she'd thought.
"Wow!" Peral just looked at her for a moment. "You look incredible. My little sis is all grown up. Fair Lady Guinevere, may I escort you to the ball?"
"Thank you, Sir Galahad. I would be most pleased." She extended one hand to Peral and he placed it on his arm. She elbowed the Doctor in the ribs and he got the idea. He placed her other hand on his arm and they followed the servant sent to guide them.
"The story of the amulet comes from the south. It is very old." The sultan was a very nice man in early middle-age. In a way he reminded Lib of her father. "One would come who bore the amulet, Truth. Some would have duties to perform. We would know our duty if it came to us. It was assumed to be a myth. For a year, singers have come with new songs. They sang of you and the amulet you wear. They told you rode from the north, but the songs came from the south. Doctor, too many old myths are coming to life. I don't believe in ghosts or prophecies."
"I don't either, Caster. I'm not a hero out of your legends. I'm a Time Lord. There are things happening here I don't understand either, but there is evil here and I've been sent to fight it."
"Yeah, the Doctor's number one good guy and we were drafted to keep him alive." Peral grinned.
"We also keep him from getting swell-headed when women swoon at his feet."
The sultan looked from Peral to Lib in surprise, then turned and saw the expression on the Doctor's face and burst into laughter. "Doctor, the signs say I have a task to perform. I've decided to do things the old-fashioned way. Tonight your friends will become Turime. The champions of man. You must stand for them and pledge them. According to the legend, you are the champion of all things that have life. In other words, Doctor, tonight they officially become 'good guys' and, as 'number one good guy', you judge if they are ready and choose if you will accept their oath." He laughed and clapped the Doctor on the back. Peral and Lib were delighted. They liked good shows and the sultan's would be terrific. They knew they were ready to be 'good guys'. They'd been preparing for it for generations.
Unlike the show for the Doctor, the one for Lib and Peral was very well attended. They knelt on the steps of a dais with the sultan seated above them. There was a major stir in the crowd behind them and the sultan grasped the arms of his chair tightly and leaned forward slightly. Lib wanted to peek behind her to see what had caused the stir, but at that moment the Doctor's voice rang out behind her and the ceremony began.
It wasn't until they turned, to give their oath to the Doctor, that Lib and Peral learned what had changed the atmosphere in the room so suddenly. He wore the flowing pants and shirtless costume of a Karishdani champion. The amulet, Weros, hung on his chest and he rested both hands on the hilt of the sword Perseveren, which stood point down on the floor.
He looked like some ancient god of battle. Lib knew how fast they would fade from his body, but he bore the ritual scars of a champion of one world and the fang marks of the enemies of another. The rigors of the trail and the lack of tergo jam had done his waistline no harm either. She and Peral had wanted a good show, he was making sure they got it.
The Doctor knew what he was allowing his godchildren to do. The ceremony was merely a tradition of Laeth. The oath would be real. He must decide. He chose and accepted their oath. They were worthy and it was what Liberty would have wanted.
When he had accepted their oaths, the sultan gave them the symbols of the champions of man. He placed a coronet of gold set with a sapphire on Peral's head and a copper one set with an emerald on Lib's. The coronets were very old.
"Doctor, you're the talk of the city. Women swoon at the mention of you."
"Give him a break, Lib. He's the star. You're jealous because he upstaged you again." Peral was laughing. "You added your share to the show. Petticoats went into the dustbin all over town and little sisters everywhere are begging their big brothers to teach them to use a sword."
"I'm just seeing to it he doesn't get too smug. He cut quite a figure last night. Both before and during the ceremony. Frankly, Doctor, you were magnificent." Her smile changed and became soft and sincere. "Thank you for accepting me, Godfather."
"It meant a lot to me too, Doctor. Thank you."
The Doctor smiled at them and shook his head. "I've just allowed you two to swear to take on all the evil in the universe. I did it because you'd have done it anyway. I also believed you worthy of the oath."
The Doctor was totally unprepared for the double hug he received from them.
Leoht put on quite a show as they left the city. Rearing and prancing. The Doctor threatened to give his feed to the birds, but he didn't believe him. After awhile, Wealdan and Heort decided to get in on the act. The minstrels added a verse about dancing mounts to several other new ones and carried them north. And the Doctor rode south.