Glory Road Page 23

  I had no bent, I was a dilettante—and I realized it when I saw that my tutors were bored with me. So I let most of them go, stuck with math and multi-universe history, quit trying to know it all.

  I thought about going into business. But to enjoy business you must be a businessman at heart (I’m not), or you have to need dough. I had dough; all I could do was lose it—or, if I won, I would never know whether word had gone out (from any government anywhere): Don’t buck the Empress’s consort, we will make good your losses.

  Same with poker. I introduced the game and it caught on fast—and I found that I could no longer play it. Poker must be serious or it’s nothing—out when you own an ocean of money, adding or losing a few drops mean nothing.

  I should explain—Her Wisdom’s “civil list” may not have been as large as the expenditures of many big spenders in Center; the place is rich. But it was as big as Star wanted it to be, a bottomless well of wealth. I don’t know how many worlds split the tab, but call it twenty thousand with three billion people each—it was more than that.

  A penny each from 60,000,000,000,000 people is six hundred billion dollars. The figures mean nothing except to show that spreading it so thin that nobody could feel it still meant more money than I could dent. Star’s nongovernment of her unEmpire was an expense, I suppose—but her personal expenses, and mine, no matter how lavish, were irrelevant.

  King Midas lost interest in his piggy bank. So did I.

  Oh, I spent money. (I never touched any—unnecessary.) Our “flat” (I won’t call it a palace)—our home had a gymnasium more imaginative than any university gym; I had a salle d’armes added and did a lot of fencing, almost every day with all sorts of weapons. I ordered foils made to match the Lady Vivamus and the best swordmasters in several worlds took turns helping me. I had a range added, too, and had my bow picked up from that Gate cave in Karth-Hokesh, and trained in archery and in other aimed weapons. Oh, I spent money as I pleased.

  But it wasn’t much fun.

  I was sitting in my study one day, doing not a damn thing but brood, while I played with a bowlful of jewels.

  I had fiddled with jewelry design a while. It had interested me in high school; I had worked for a jeweler one summer. I can sketch and was fascinated by lovely stones. He lent me books, I got others from the library—and once he made up one of my designs.

  I had a Calling.

  But jewelers are not draft-deferred so I dropped it—until Center.

  You see, there was no way for me to give Star a present unless I made it. So I did. I made costume jewelry of real stones, studying it (expert help, as usual), sending for a lavish selection of stones, drawing designs, sending stones and drawings out to be made up.

  I knew that Star enjoyed jeweled costumes; I knew she liked them naughty—not in the sense of crowding the taboos, there weren’t any—but provocative, gilding the lily, accentuating what hardly needs it.

  The things I designed would have seemed at home in a French revue—but of real gems. Sapphires and gold suited Star’s blond beauty and I used them. But she could wear any color and I used other gems, too.

  Star was delighted with my first try and wore it that evening. I was proud of it; I had swiped the design from memory of a costume worn by a showgirl in a Frankfurt night club my first night out of the army—a G-string deal, transparent long skirt open from the hip on one side and with sequins on it (I used sapphires), a thing that wasn’t a bra but an emphasizer, completely jeweled, and a doohickey in her hair to match. High golden sandals with sapphire heels.

  Star was warmly grateful for others that followed.

  But I learned something. I’m not a jewelry designer. I saw no hope of matching the professionals who catered to the wealthy in Center. I soon realized that Star wore my designs because they were my gift, just as mama pins up the kindergarten drawings that sonny brings home. So I quit.

  This bowl of gems had been kicking around my study for weeks—fire opals, sardonyx, carnelians, diamonds and turquoise and rubies, moonstones and sapphires and garnets, peridot, emeralds, chrysolite—many with no English names. I ran them through my fingers, watching the many-colored fire falls, and felt sorry for myself. I wondered how much these pretty marbles would cost on Earth? I couldn’t guess within a million dollars.

  I didn’t bother to lock them up at night. And I was the bloke who had quit college for lack of tuition and hamburgers.

  I pushed them aside and went to my window—there because I had told Star that I didn’t like not having a window in my study. That was on arrival and I didn’t find out for months how much had been torn down to please me; I had thought they had just cut through a wall.

  It was a beautiful view, more a park than a city, studded but not cluttered with lovely buildings. It was hard to realize that it was a city bigger than Tokyo; its “bones” didn’t show and its people worked even half a planet away.

  There was a murmur soft as bees, like the muted roar one can never escape in New York—but softer, just enough to make me realize that I was surrounded by people, each with his job, his purpose, his function.

  My function? Consort.

  Gigolo!

  Star, without realizing it, had introduced prostitution into a world that had never known it. An innocent world, where man and woman bedded together only for the reason that they both wanted to.

  A prince consort is not a prostitute. He has his work and it is often tedious, representing his sovereign mate, laying cornerstones, making speeches. Besides that, he has his duty as royal stud to ensure that the line does not die.

  I had none of these. Not even the duty of entertaining Star—hell, within ten miles of me were millions of men who would jump at the chance.

  The night before had been bad. It started badly and went on into one of those weary pillow conferences which married couples sometimes have, and aren’t as healthy as a bang-up row. We had had one, as domestic as any working stiff worried over bills and the boss.

  Star had done something she had never done before: brought work home. Five men, concerned with some intergalactic hassle—I never knew what as the discussion had been going on for hours and they sometimes spoke a language not known to me.

  They ignored me, I was furniture. On Center introductions are rare; if you want to talk to someone, you say “Self,” and wait. If he doesn’t answer, walk off. If he does, exchange identities.

  None of them did, and I was damned if I would start it. As strangers in my home it was up to them. But they didn’t act as if it was my home.

  I sat there, the Invisible Man, getting madder and madder.

  They went on arguing, while Star listened. Presently she summoned maids and they started undressing her, brushing her hair. Center is not America, I had no reason to feel shocked. What she was doing was being rude to them, treating them as furniture (she hadn’t missed how they treated me).

  One said pettishly, “Your Wisdom, I do wish you would listen as you agreed to.” (I’ve expanded the argot.)

  Star said coldly, “I am judge of my conduct. No one else is capable.”

  True. She could judge her conduct, they could not. Nor, I realized bitterly, could I. I had been feeling angry at her (even though I knew it didn’t matter) for calling in her maids and starting to ready for bed with these lunks present—and I had intended to tell her not to let it happen again. I resolved not to raise that issue.

  Shortly Star chopped them off. “He’s right. You’re wrong. Settle it that way. Get out.”

  But I did intend to sneak it in by objecting to her bringing “tradespeople” home.

  Star beat me to the punch. The instant we were alone she said, “My love, forgive me. I agreed to hear this silly mix-up and it dragged on and on, then I thought I could finish it quickly if I got them out of chairs, made them stand up here, and made clear that I was bored. I never thought they would wrangle another hour before I could squeeze out the real issue. And I knew that, if I put it over till tomorrow, they wo
uld stretch it into hours. But the problem was important, I couldn’t drop it.” She sighed. “That ridiculous man—yet such people scramble to high places. I considered having him fool-killed. Instead I must let him correct his error, or the situation will break out anew.”

  I couldn’t even hint that she had ruled the way she had out of annoyance; the man she had chewed out was the one in whose favor she had ruled. So I said, “Let’s go to bed, you’re tired”—and then didn’t have sense enough to refrain from judging her myself.

  NINETEEN

  We went to bed.

  Presently she said, “Oscar, you are displeased.”

  “I didn’t say so.”

  “I feel it. Nor is it Just tonight and those tedious clowns. You have been withdrawing yourself, unhappy.” She waited.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Oscar, anything which troubles you can never be ‘nothing’ to me. Although I may not realize it until I know what it is.”

  “Well—I feel so damn useless!”

  She put her soft, strong hand on my chest. “To me you are not useless. Why do you feel useless to yourself?”

  “Well—look at this bed!” It was a bed the like of which Americans never dream; it could do everything but kiss you good night—and, like the city, it was beautiful, its bones did not show. “This sack, at home, would cost more—if they could build it—than the best house my mother ever lived in.”

  She thought about that. “Would you like to send money to your mother?” She beckoned the bedside communicator. “Is Elmendorf Air Force Base of America address enough?”

  (I don’t recall ever telling her where Mother lived.) “No, no!” I gestured at the talker, shutting it off. “I do not want to send her money. Her husband supports her. He won’t take money from me. That’s not the point.”

  “Then I don’t see the point as yet. Beds do not matter, it is who is in a bed that counts. My darling, if you don’t like this bed, we can get another. Or sleep on the floor. Beds do not matter.”

  “This bed is okay. The only thing wrong is that I didn’t pay for it. You did. This house. My clothes. The food I eat. My—my toys! Every damned thing I have you gave me. Know what I am. Star? A gigolo! Do you know what a gigolo is? A somewhat-male prostitute.”

  One of my wife’s most exasperating habits was, sometimes, to refuse to snap back at me when she knew I was spoiling for a row. She looked at me thoughtfully. “America is a busy place, isn’t it? People work all the time, especially men.”

  “Well…yes.”

  “It isn’t the custom everywhere, even on Earth. A Frenchman isn’t unhappy if he has free time; he orders another café au lait and lets the saucers pile up. Nor am I fond of work. Oscar, I ruined our evening from laziness, too anxious to avoid having to redo a weary task tomorrow. I will not make that mistake twice.”

  “Star, that doesn’t matter. That’s over with.”

  “I know. The first issue is rarely the key. Nor the second. Nor, sometimes, the twenty-second. Oscar, you are not a gigolo.”

  “What do you call it? When it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck and acts like a duck, I call it a duck. Call it a bunch of roses. It still quacks.”

  “No. All this around us—” She waved. “Bed. This beautiful chamber. The food we eat. My clothes and yours. Our lovely pools. The night majordomo on watch against the chance that you or I might demand a singing bird or a ripe melon. Our captive gardens. All we see or touch or use or fancy—and a thousand times as much in distant places, all these you earned with your own strong hands; they are yours, by right.”

  I snorted. “They are,” she insisted. “That was our contract. I promised you great adventure, and greater treasure, and even greater danger. You agreed. You said, ‘Princess, you’ve hired yourself a boy.’” She smiled. “Such a big boy. Darling, I think the dangers were greater than you guessed…so it has pleased me, until now, that the treasure is greater than you were likely to have guessed. Please don’t be shy about accepting it. You have earned it and more—as much as you are ever willing to accept.”

  “Uh—even if you are right, it’s too much. I’m drowning in marshmallows!”

  “But, Oscar, you don’t have to take one bit you don’t want. We can live simply. In one room with bed folded into wall if it pleases you.”

  “That’s no solution.”

  “Perhaps you would like bachelor digs, out in town?”

  “‘Tossing my shoes,’ eh?”

  She said levelly, “My husband, if your shoes are ever tossed, you must toss them. I jumped over your sword. I shall not jump back.”

  “Take it easy!” I said. “It was your suggestion. If I took it wrong, I’m sorry. I know you don’t go back on your word. But you might be regretting it.”

  “I am not regretting it. Are you?”

  “No, Star, no! But—”

  “That’s a long pause for so short a word,” she said gravely. “Will you tell me?”

  “Uh…that’s just it. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Tell what, Oscar? There are so many things to tell.”

  “Well, a lot of things. What I was getting into. About you being the Empress of the whole works, in particular…before you let me jump over the sword with you.”

  Her face did not change but tears rolled down her cheeks. “I could answer that you did not ask me—”

  “I didn’t know what to ask!”

  “That is true. I could assert, truthfully, that had you asked I would have answered. I could protest that I did not ‘let you’ jump over the sword, that you overruled my protests that it was not necessary to offer me the honor of marriage by the laws of your people…that I was a wench you could tumble at will. I could point out that I am not an empress, not royal, but a working woman whose job does not permit her even the luxury of being noble. All these are true. But I will not hide behind them; I will meet your question.” She slipped into Nevian. “Milord Hero, I feared sorely that if I did not bend to your will, you would leave me!”

  “Milady wife, truly did you think that your champion would desert you in your peril?” I went on in English, “Well, that nails it to the barn. You married me because the Egg damned well had to be recovered and Your Wisdom told you that I was necessary to the job—and might bug out if you didn’t. Well, Your Wisdom wasn’t sharp on that point; I don’t bug out. Stupid of me but I’m stubborn.” I started to get out of bed.

  “Milord love!” She was dying openly.

  “Excuse me. Got to find a pair of shoes. See how far I can throw them.” I was being nasty as only a man can be who has had his pride wounded.

  “Please, Oscar, please! Hear me first.”

  I heaved a sigh. “Talk ahead.”

  She grabbed my hand so hard I would have lost fingers had I tried to pull loose. “Hear me out. My beloved, it was not that at all. I knew that you would not give up our quest until it was finished or we were dead. I knew! Not only had I reports reaching back years before I ever saw you but also we had shared joy and danger and hardship; I knew your mettle. But, had it been needed, I could have bound you with a net of words, persuaded you to agree to betrothal only—until the quest was over. You are a romantic, you would have agreed. But, darling, darling! I wanted to marry you…bind you to me by your rules, so that”—she stopped to sniff back tears—“so that, when you saw all this, and this, and this, and the things you call ‘your toys,’ you still would stay with me. It was not politics, it was love—love romantic and unreasoned, love for your own sweet self.”

  She dropped her face into her hands and I could barely hear her. “But I know so little of love. Love is a butterfly that lights when it listeth, leaves as it chooses; it is never bound with chains. I sinned. I tried to bind you. Unjust I knew it was, cruel to you I now see it to be.” Star looked up with crooked smile. “Even Her Wisdom has no wisdom when it comes to being a woman. But, though silly wench I be, I am not too stubborn to know that I have wronged my beloved when my face is rubb
ed in it. Go, go, get your sword; I will jump back over it and my champion will be free of his silken cage. Go, milord Hero, while my heart is firm.”

  “Go fetch your own sword, wench. That paddling is long overdue.”

  Suddenly she grinned, all hoyden. “But, darling, my sword is in Karth-Hokesh. Don’t you remember?”

  “You can’t avoid it this time!” I grabbed her. Star is a handful and slippery, with amazing muscles. But I’m bigger and she didn’t fight as hard as she could have. Still I lost skin and picked up bruises before I got her legs pinned and one arm twisted behind her. I gave her a couple of hearty spanks, hard enough to print each finger in pink, then lost interest.

  Now tell me, were those words straight from her heart—or was it acting by the smartest woman in twenty universes?

  Later, Star said, “I’m glad your chest is not a scratchy rug, like some men, my beautiful.”

  “I was a pretty baby, too. How many chests have you checked?”

  “A random sample. Darling, have you decided to keep me?”

  “A while. On good behavior, you understand.”

  “I’d rather be kept on bad behavior. But—while you’re feeling mellow—if you are—I had best tell you another thing—and take my spanking if I must.”

  “You’re too anxious. One a day is maximum, hear me?”

  “As you will, sir. Yassuh, Boss man. I’ll have my sword fetched in the morning and you can spank me with it at your leisure. If you think you can catch me. But I must tell this and get it off my chest.”

  “There’s nothing on your chest. Unless you count—”

  “Please! You’ve been going to our therapists.”

  “Once a week.” The first thing Star had ordered was an examination for me so complete as to make an army physical seem perfunctory. “The Head Sawbones insists that my wounds aren’t healed but I don’t believe him; I’ve never felt better.”

  “He, is stalling, Oscar—by my order. You’re healed, I am not unskilled, I was most careful. But—darling, I did this for selfish reasons and now you must tell me if I have been cruel and unjust to you again. I admit I was sneaky. But my intentions were good. However, I know, as the prime lesson of my profession, that good intentions are the source of more folly than all other causes put together.”