Universe Twister - Keith Laumer [172]
He was standing in a clearing in the forest. Bright moonlight dazzled down through the high boughs of lofty pines on patched tents and high-wheeled wagons with once-garish paint jobs now faded to chipped and peeling pastel tones. A motley crowd of black-haired, olive-skinned men, women, and children, all dressed in soiled garments of bright, mismatched colors, stared solemnly at him. From tent flaps and the dim-lit windows of wagons more curious faces gazed. Except for the soft sigh of wind through the trees and the clop of a swaybacked horse shifting his hooves, the silence was total.
"Well," Lafayette began, but a spasm of coughing detracted from the tone of indignation. "I suppose (cough) you've kidnapped me (cough-cough) for a reason . . ."
"Steeck around, Zorro. Don't get impatient," the one-eyed man said. "You'll geet the message queeck enough."
There was a stir in the ranks; the crowd parted.
An elderly man, still powerful-looking in spite of his grizzled hair and weather-beaten face, came forward. He was dressed in a purple satin shirt with pink armbands, baggy chartreuse pants above short red boots with curled toes. There were rings on each of his thick fingers; a string of beads hung around his corded neck. Through his wide green alligator belt were thrust a bulky pistol and a big-bladed knife with glass emeralds and rubies set in the plastic handle. He planted himself before Lafayette, looking him up and down with an expression of sour disapproval on his not-recently-shaved mahogany-dark face.
"Ha!" he said. "So Meester Beeg-mouth Zorro, he not so hot like he theenk, hey!" He grasped a long hair curling from his nose, yanked it out, held it up, looking at it, let his narrowed eyes slide past it to Lafayette.
"Look, I don't know what this Zorro business is," O'Leary said, "but if you're in charge of this menagerie, how about detailing someone to take me back to town before matters get entirely out of hand? I can square things by saying a word to a chap in the records department and have the whole thing scratched off the blotter, and—"
"Ha!" the oldster cut Lafayette's speech short. "You theenk you weegle out of the seetuation by pretending you got bats een the belfry! But eet's no use, Zorro! Theese is not the way the ancient Law of the Tribe, she works!"
A mutter of agreement rose from the bystanders. There were a few snickers; a single muffled sob came from a dark-eyed young creature in the front rank.
"What's your tribal law got to do with me?" Lafayette said hotly. "I was going quietly about my business when your gang of thugs grabbed me—"
"OK, I streeng along weeth the gag," the fierce-eyed old man interrupted with an ominous grin. "Last night, you dreenk a few bottles of Old Sulphuric, and you geet beeg ideas: you have the nerve to make a pass at the niece of the King! By the rule of the Tribe, theese offer, she cannot be ignored—even from a seemple-minded nobody like you! So—poor old King Shosto—he geeves you your chance!" The swarthy man smote himself on the chest.
"Look, you've got me mixed up with somebody else," Lafayette said. "My name is O'Leary, and—"
"But naturally, before you can have the preevilege of wooing Gizelle, you got to breeng home a trophy to qualify. For theese reason, you sleep eento the ceety under cover of darkness. I seend Luppo and a few of the boys along to keep an eye on you. And—the first theeng—the Roumi cops peek you up. Beeg deal! Ha!"
"This seems to be a case of mistaken identity," Lafayette said reasonably. "I've never seen you before in my life. My name is O'Leary and I live in the palace with