THE ROAD TO FAME
On a lovely spring day in a time long ago–God grant its like may never
return–a young soldier sat in the saddle and turned his face toward a
promised reward.
He had accomplished his first great deed, and he went to meet the
future, confident of himself and his own lofty ambition.
The young man’s name was Fortune. He was the son of Karl the Strong,
once an over-captain in the army of the Tower People of Manhattan, and
one Irma, a mother descended of soldiers.
Among comrades and through the ranks of his command this Fortune was
nicknamed “The White,” because of his pale, yellow hair and unusually
fair skin, a skin that sun and wind seemed to leave untanned. Armed
though he was in steel helmet and chain mail, that white skin and the
healthy pink in his cheek made him seem effeminate.
But Fortune stood six feet one in his soft leather shoes; there were
few sword arms more skilled than his, and in battle his wide-set and
rather large gray eyes burned black with a wicked madness that made men
afraid.
Fortune’s basin-shaped steel helmet bore a cock’s feather, half of its
white length dyed crimson, the insignia of a petty-captaincy. His
jacket was of light chain mail, as soft as linen. A light shield, on
which was painted the crest of the Tower People, hung from his saddle
bow. Soft boots of ocher hue clad his legs.
His arms and equipment glowed from polishing, for Petty-captain Fortune
was answering the summons of Wenn, commander of the armies, and if luck
served him, he might appear before Wolff, the Great Towerman who ruled
the island of Manhattan and everything on it. For this was Fortune,
known in that year 2078 as the hero of the great wall, and he had clad
himself in a manner proper to one who has a great tale to tell.
With the young petty-captain rode a squat, roly-poly body-servant whose
broad face, snub nose, twinkling little eyes, and wide, thick-lipped
mouth told of ignorant good nature, though they gave little hint of the
man’s real courage and steadfast devotion. His name was Ham.
Before daylight Fortune had left his post of duty on the Northern Wall.
Almost a year he had spent in service on the great barricade men had
built to hold back the wilder men who lived Out Beyond. His tower was
at the junction of the North River and the Swift Ditch, the Harlem
River of the ancient day. Between the wall and great hall of Wolff lay
a good day’s journey by dangerous and almost impassable road.
It was a strange sort of road that wound its length through dark and
wild forest where the jungle growth of vine and creeper and ivy
intertwined and hedged the larger hardwood trees. For centuries man
had traveled that path. Once it had been a highway of the old
civilization, and its length bore mute evidence of former glory.
A part of their way was marked by the rusted uprights of what had once
been an overhead train-way, a sad and ragged reminder of the days
before the Great Catastrophe. Always the horse’s hoofs were turning up
through the mire bits of stone and steel and brick, twisted scraps of
rod and bolt and potsherd. Ever as they rode, Fortune and his man
could distinguish in the fantastic forms of grapevine and creeper
grotesque resemblances to the shattered walls they masked. Sometimes,
from an eminence, looking across the green undulations of forest, they
noted the jagged tooth of an old tower or wall that still defied the
elements.
Accustomed as they were to such sights, they avoided them as
unpleasant, and they spurred a little faster past those occasional
cases in the greenery where still a few scarred shells of what had once
been homes held back the jungle, for these were charnel houses filled
with white bones, and dreaded by all men of that dark day.
They rode where once had stood the world’s proudest city, the New York
of the ancients, stirring from the mud evidence of a civilization too
fine for their intelligence to comprehend. Flattened into ruins by the
Great Catastrophe of 1989, almost a hundred years had worked with
Time’s slow tools to disperse the city’s dust until the name itself was
forgotten and the place was called Manhattan after the island.
The old civilization was gone, wiped out in the Great Catastrophe; the
new was not yet born. History can tell of no blacker hour since the
race began.
The descendants of the millions who once inhabited the island huddled
for shelter at the lower end of the land, where it meets the sea.
There lived the Tower People, amid the faded glories of a time as
splendid, at least, as our own happy day; finding their refuge in the
few great walls that had survived destruction. Yet there, beneath the
earth, closed in from the free air, existed those miserable beings they
held in slavery–the Folk of Manhattan.
How many they made in all it is difficult to say. There is no record.
Fifty thousand souls would be overstating the number. Of these the
Tower People were considerably a minority, yet from their Great Hall
they extended an iron-handed government to every corner of the island.
Theirs was the government which Fortune served.
Head of this government was Wolff, the Great Towerman, the “highest
born,” and under him that directorate of political officers who
fattened themselves and their kind by the slavery of men of their own
race.
And beneath them came the rank above industrial slavery–the military
caste to which belonged Petty-captain Fortune.
This was the day and the age in which Fortune rode with his man Ham,
but saving a superstitious avoidance of the dust of death along their
way, they gave place and time little thought, for it was as familiar a
part of their normal world as the sun and the clouds. Their minds were
busy with their own affairs.
As he rode, Ham sang a tuneless rhyme, repeating it monotonously and
with evident satisfaction:
“Fortune the White–
Fortune the White–
Shall rule in might
Till the Torch burns bright.”
His master turned on him with a sudden frown of impatience, the heavy
riding-whip, lashed out at Ham, and Fortune said sharply, “Leave done
with that foolishness. When we go to the Great Hall I want that ugly
mouth kept closed–“
“I sing only what all men sing,” Ham grumbled aggrievedly.
“Let no man sing it again,” warned the petty-captain. “I will not be
made a mock of.”
“Men say it is an old prophecy, and true,” Ham defended. “Even the
children say–“
The lash raised a cloud of dust from the shoulders of Ham’s leather
jacket. “I promise, captain,” he shouted. “I promise, but if the
children–“
“Because it happens my name is ridiculous no one shall dare mock me,”
the young soldier grumbled, on his dignity. “I will make folk hold
their tongues.”
Ham was quiet a few moments, but his relations with his master were,
because of recent events, more those of comrade than servant. Soon he
grinned and said, “When you become an over-captain, I shall take a
plump woman for my wife and get me a new horse.”
“And if I should become the commander?” Fortune laughed.
“Oh, then I shall have a dozen fine women to choose from.”
“You are very sure of your future,” mocked Fortune.
“Why not? Doesn’t the old prophecy say you shall rule till the Torch
burns–“
“Will you forget that idiocy?” stormed the captain. He added
sarcastically, “Better say, ‘When the Torch burns,’ for that is never.”
“But you are the hero of the wall,” Ham argued. “Wolff will make you
great for what we did there.”
“Remember the old saying,” his master warned. “‘When the mighty give
thanks it is only because they hope for more.’ But for all that, we
will become great, Ham. It is my will to go far and rise high, and by
the Torch I will do it! Something in me tells me that.”
Fortune was not an idle braggart. His father had nothing to leave him
except an over-captain’s right to enter a son in the cadet’s school of
the Directorate. Fortune’s active service in a small command had
lasted little more than a year, and already he had gained fame.
Besides, he was going to Wolff possessed of a secret which he believed
exclusively his own, a secret of possible political importance, one
that, an ambitious young man might use for his advancement. He
believed implicitly in his own ability.
Ham greeted his words with a grin. “Like master like man,” said he.
“Then I, too, will live in a tower and kick the folk out of my path
when I go out. You will not forget me then, captain?”
“I am not ungrateful,” Fortune declared. “I shall remember that you
saved my life, not once, but six times in the fight on the wall. I
will remember that.”
“Ho-ho,” crowed Ham. “I’d give my horse to be there when you tell it
to Wolff. That will be a tale–how Engard played the traitor though he
knew from the spies that the Wild Folk were about to attack; how–“
Fortune frowned again. “Ham,” he ordered: “when you are at the Great
Hall remember what I told you; hold your tongue. Little pitchers have
large spouts and spill too much. Let me talk; I will tell it–“
“But captain, surely you will tell how Engard took a Towerman’s half of
our men away!”
“I will tell what I think best.” More to himself than to Ham, Fortune
puzzled, “Engard is only a tool of a greater hand. Now whose hand was
it? Who could profit by weakening the defense of the wall, and how
could he profit? If I knew whose seal was on that message that came to
Engard, then I would know something! What wouldn’t I give to own a
friend in Wolff’s guard–a man who would know all the gossip of the
Great Hall? I am walking blindfolded, but armed with a powerful
weapon, if I knew how to use it!
“As for you, Ham, hold your tongue, or I’ll send you back among the
Folk in the Under City; yes, in the Drains, where the damp will kill
you slowly by terrible cramps.”
But Ham paid no attention to the threat. “I see men riding,” he
interrupted.
Just ahead of them the road made a sharp turn to avoid the ruins of
what had once been a magnificent building of stone. Rounding this
turn, they came upon five men who awaited them in the recess of a
great, arched door.
One man stood out from the group because of his flashing chain mail and
helmet, the trappings of his horse, and his red beard that spilled
across a mighty chest and glistened in the sun like new copper.
“Look,” gasped Ham, “it’s Frederick–the comptroller!”
The man they encountered was one of the most forceful figures of his
time. Our history gives us but an inadequate picture of the Great
Comptroller Frederick and little explanation of his power. We know
that the root of that power was his grasp of the sketchy financial
system of the day, a system based on the production of the slaving folk.
Money in its present form had only a limited circulation among the
Tower People, yet it served as counters in the amazing game of
duplicity that held Americans in subjection. Because he was master of
that complicated system of falsehoods that assured the Folk they were
paid for their production, and at the same time robbed them of all
reward under guise of taxation in various forms, Frederick had risen to
a position that made him feared by Wolff himself. By all logic of the
time he was the natural successor to Wolff in the office of Towerman.
This great man, though he dressed as a soldier, looked more the
statesman. His peculiar, whitish face was long and narrow across the
temples. His brown eyes were wrinkled about with lines of cunning, and
took a light that made them seem at times as coppery as his beard. For
all his fine height and breadth of shoulder and chest, Frederick, best
feared, and best hated of the Directorate, looked like the shrewd fox
rather than the predatory wolf.
The party under the arch waited the coming of Fortune and his man with
evident interest. At Ham’s warning Fortune had put his hand to his
sword for defense. Now he drew the blade and raised it, perpendicular,
in salute. He hoped very much to be able to ride past Frederick
without words, but on a sign from him he halted.
They rode close to Frederick, and the comptroller greeted Fortune
suavely. “If I am not mistaken, this is that Fortune of the wall whose
name is in all men’s mouths?”
“I am Fortune.” The petty-captain bowed.
“Give me your hand, Fortune! The Tower-People are proud of such
soldiers as you.”
Fortune trusted his palm to the other’s cold, firm grasp, and the men
with Frederick brought their swords to a smart salute that set chain
mail and plate armor to clinking and clanking.
Fortune flushed slightly at the honor, but he set his lips in a firm
line, and with chin high and eye flashing, took what he considered his
due.
“Young man–” The comptroller’s voice, was smooth as cream. “You ride
to Wenn, and I know your errand is urgent; but you must pardon an old
man’s curiosity if I detain you. I am thirsty to hear the tale of that
fight. Ride with me a short way and tell it while I wait for my men to
get food ready. Then you must join us at bread.”
Any young captain would have given his head for such recognition, but
Fortune tempered his elation with a resolve to be cautious. If he told
what he knew it would be in order to learn more. He made a sign to Ham
to stay behind, and the two walked their horses down the road. “Now,”
invited Frederick.
“Sir,” said the petty-captain, “it is a short thing to say. Five days
ago we on the wall heard from our spies that the Wild Folk planned a
raid on our towers at that end of the wall where the Swift Ditch meets
the North River. I summoned all the men under me–“
“How many men?”
“Half a company, sir–“
“And where were the rest–and Engard, their captain?”
Fortune shifted uneasily in the saddle, but he met the comptroller’s
burning glance eye to eye. “Engard and half the command were withdrawn
a short time after the warning came. I had but–“
“And by whose order was Engard withdrawn?”
Frederick’s voice was smooth with the cold, hard smoothness of steel.
“Sir, I–” Fortune mended his intention. “I have heard it said–” he
evaded.
The comptroller brushed aside the words.
“Tell me only what you know; let others repeat rumors,” he advised.
“A message came to Engard–a message bearing a certain seal,” Fortune
began.
“You saw this message?”
“I held it in my hand. The messenger came to me seeking Engard.”
“You would know the device of that seal again?”
The eyes of the two men exchanged sharp glances: from Frederick a stern
warning; from the petty-captain defiance. “I would,” Fortune averred.
The comptroller laid his hand affectionately on the young man’s arm and
spoke softly, his cool, cultivated voice sounding a persuasive chord.
“Young captain,” he advised; “you are on the road to power. You are
young and brave, and I think you are ambitious. Perhaps you know the
old rhyme the children sing:
“Fortune the White—
Fortune the White–“
Fortune’s cheeks burned under Frederick’s smiling regard. “I know the
rhyme,” he admitted briefly.
“And you believe in the prophecy?”
“Only the Folk, in their ignorance, believe such foolery,” Fortune
protested.
“Surely,”, the comptroller agreed easily, but added to himself: “But
the Folk are many more than all of us together, and powerful, in their
ignorance.” He continued paternally, “You are ambitious–I can see
it–and I admire ambition. Well, you will go far, for you held the
wall against a superior force, and that has brought your name favorably
before Wolff himself. Ah, it is splendid to be young, with a career
and fame ahead of one. I envy you. You will surely rise–_if you are
discreet_.”
“Discreet, sir?”
“Let me advise you, young captain,” the comptroller soothed, “if I had
a son I would counsel him in just such a way. Zeal is worthy of its
pay; but discretion to a man who is ambitious, ah, that is priceless!
Some things it is well to remember; others are better forgotten. For
instance, if my son were in your place, anxious to rise high and wield
great power, I would advise him concerning that message you mention,
that he forget it, or at least that he forget the seal it bore.”
“But, sir, Engard knows, he himself–“
“Engard?” mused Frederick. “Oh, Engard is dead.”
“Dead?” cried Fortune; “You are mistaken. I left him this very
morning, very much alive.”
“Nevertheless,” Frederick repeated with calm assurance, “Engard is
dead.” He glanced at the sun, rising almost to noon. “Yes, surely by
this time Engard is dead. Later, when you hear the news, remember who
told you.”
Fortune glanced incredulously into the foxlike face of the great man
smiling paternally upon him. He wondered for a moment if there was
some double meaning in his words–some subtlety that had escaped him.
How could Engard be dead? If he was dead, how could the comptroller
know when Fortune, who had seen Engard a few hours ago, had traveled
without delay as far as this meeting?
And if Engard was dead, in what way had he died? Frederick seemed to
know, judging by his manner, and perhaps Frederick had caused that
death! The comptroller’s certainty suggested as much; but Fortune did
not dare to put the questions to him.
The red-bearded man, sitting his black horse so magnificently, smiled
in kindly fashion down on him, and Fortune felt the warmth vanish from
the spring noon; the sunlight and the green trees about him, the blue
sky in which floated a few baby clouds–even the honest smell of earth
and new life seemed to mask dangers. He shivered.
But Fortune was young, and he had assurance. After all, why should he
credit this man’s word? “If Engard is dead,” he observed coolly,
steadying his voice by an effort, “that leaves but me with the memory
of that message and its seal. May I ask, sir, why it would be discreet
to forget?”
“It is not always wise to ask why.” Frederick measured his words
impressively. “But suppose we guess that none will be the happier for
hearing what you might tell. Suppose we say that to tell it might make
you a powerful enemy.”
“And if I keep silent–” Fortune had a feeling that he was driving a
bargain.
“You might make a powerful friend.”
“My allegiance, sir, is to Wolff and to him only.”
“Surely, do your duty, captain.” The comptroller exhibited sudden
indifference.
“Even to telling him of that message that came to Engard, the message
that withdrew half our force–and the seal on the message?”
“Let no man withhold truth from the Great Towerman,” said Frederick.
“Remember, I counsel nobody to divide his allegiance.”
“But, sir–“
“I have merely offered you advice,” Frederick completed his sentence.
“I have counseled you as I would my own son. I would like to be your
friend, Captain Fortune, to see you advance. Think over what I have
said, and meantime we will break bread.”
The great man put a period to their discussion. He turned his horse
about and led the way toward his party. A number of servants had come
up and were spreading food on a cloth that had been laid on the grass.
Following the comptroller, Fortune thought over their talk carefully.
That there had been treachery of some sort on the wall was common talk.
Bold men whispered that some higher power, some man close to the Great
Towerman himself, had, for reasons of his own, deliberately withdrawn
half the defense from the very point where the Wild Folk attacked.
Their attack had failed only because Fortune was young and rash and
ambitious, and luck had been on his side.
The identity of this great intriguer was a mystery to the defenders of
the wall, as great a mystery as was his motive. Fortune had told no
one of the device on that sealed message that had come to his
over-captain, Engard. That secret he was saving, convinced that it
might be used in some way toward his own advancement.
Not being a fool, the young man saw that the comptroller knew the
identity of the sender of that message, and was interested in shielding
him. The Directorate bubbled with hidden intrigues. It might even be
that Frederick himself had pulled the wires that almost cost them the
strong north wall; or again Frederick might be testing Fortune’s
loyalty to his masters.
Fortune felt that he was walking blindfolded on the edge of a dangerous
cliff. But he also determined stubbornly to hold to what he knew until
he had made a more definite bargain than the comptroller had offered.
They lingered an hour at the noon meal, Frederick suave and graceful;
his officers reflecting a corresponding urbanity toward the guest, and
the guest in a fever either to solve the riddle forthwith or be on his
way to Wolff, where he hoped to learn something.
At last the comptroller set the example by rising from their picnic
table.
“We must part, young captain,” said he, giving Fortune his hand; “Your
story has interested me greatly, but it seems that you have left one
point untold, one question unanswered.”
The significant look that accompanied his words warned Fortune he
expected a promise of discretion.
“Sir,” answered Fortune, fencing, “I am humbly grateful for your
friendship and counsel. I am not sure that I understand one thing
clearly.”
“Ah, I am sorry I have not the time to go into more details.”
“You cannot be more definite?”
“I can only offer you advice–such as I gave you.”
“Then,” answered Fortune with a deep breath, as a man takes a plunge,
“I am sorry, but I have answered all the questions I can answer any man
save Wolff himself.”
The comptroller smiled with a careless air that suggested Fortune’s
veiled defiance was a matter of supreme indifference. “As you please.”
He nodded. “I am sure the Towerman will reward such devotion–if he
knows. A speedy and safe journey to you, young captain.”
Host and guest exchanged a salute, and Fortune and Ham rode on toward
the city and the Great Hall of Wolff.
Ham mumbled his tuneless songs and grinned in anticipation of delights
to come, but Fortune was left puzzling over his dismissal. Frederick’s
last phrase: “If he knows” was almost in the nature of a threat.
Ham put a question that evidently he had been revolving in his slow
mind. “What did the old Red Fox want of us?”
“Something for nothing,” said Fortune briefly.
“Then he didn’t get it.”
“No, nor will he unless I see the price first.”
Ham shook his head doubtfully. “The fox is shrewd and powerful,” he
muttered. “Folk say that even great men fear him–shrewd and mighty is
the old Red Fox. Be careful.”
“Thanks,” answered his master dryly. “I’ll manage my own affairs. And
you, Ham, remember what I told you–be silent.”
“I am deaf and dumb,” Ham declared vigorously.
“No, not deaf, too,” Fortune advised. “I want you to use those ears of
yours–they’re big enough–and your eyes, they can see far–and tell me
all you see and hear, for men are not afraid to talk before one who
looks so stupid as you.”
Toward mid-afternoon they heard the sound of an ax in the forest. The
road dipped suddenly between high banks of rock so that they were
walled in. They came to where a great oak had been felled in such a
way it had dropped into the cut and completely blocked their passage.
When they caught sight of this obstruction seven road-menders were
bustling about the huge log which seemed to have wedged itself among
the rocks. At Fortune’s shout the seven turned to gape at them.
They were a stupid lot, seemingly all of the Folk of the Under City,
dull-witted slaves of the Great Directorate. They were squat and
powerful of body, dull of eye, and indescribably dirty, with matted
hair and smudged skins. They were dressed in the coarse, blue garb of
the commonest of the laborers, and each wore a brass bracelet fitted
snugly about his left wrist, the mark of his place and cantonment.
“Make room, make room!” shouted Ham, pushing ahead. “We ride on
Wolff’s business.”
One man, who seemed to be the leader, raised his hand in token of
understanding and grunted an order. The other six seized levers and
pried the big log high enough for them to take hand hold and raise it
slowly.
Then the six, one at a time, stooped under the log at one end, and
advancing slowly, staggering with its weight, levered the big end
upward until there was room for a horse and man to pass.
Fortune’s horse, a nervous beast, shied away from the obstruction. A
half-dozen times the young captain spurred close to the log, but the
horse refused to pass beneath it. Fortune dismounted in a bad temper,
and leading the horse, walked under the bridging trunk.
When he was directly beneath the obstruction the nervous horse leaped
and reared, there was a shout from the men, and simultaneously Fortune
jumped, quick as light, to avoid the menacing hoofs.
With a crash that shook the rocks the huge log dropped. Fortune was
thrown forward on his face, struck by a branch of the tree. As he fell
he was conscious of a shrill scream of animal agony, a confusion of
shouts, and a warning cry from Ham that rose above all the sounds.
The oak had struck him a glancing blow on the shoulder, and no harm was
done. Fortune rolled to his feet, and instantly comprehended that he
had barely escaped death.
Beneath the great trunk his horse lay dead. The seven men were all
living and drawn in a group, watching him. From the opposite side of
the barrier he could hear Ham cursing loudly.
Fortune was in a fine rage.
“You dogs and spawn of dogs,” he shouted, “I’ll teach you to be careful
of Wolff’s captains!”
He ran at the group with his heavy riding-whip raised.
Six of the men ran, but the seventh sprang to meet him, and, as if by
magic, a sword appeared from beneath his long blouse.
Fortune hurled his whip after the retreating men and flashed his own
sword from its scabbard. He was barely in time to catch his
adversary’s murderous blow and turn it.
Sparks flew from the clashing steel. His wide eyes black with anger,
Fortune pressed forward recklessly, driving down the other’s defense
with a mad impetuosity that forced him back, step by step against the
rocks.
“On boys, on boys–get him!” The mysterious swordsman in laborer’s
dress shouted like a man accustomed to command.
With a scattering yell, from the greenery above the rocks, the six who
had retreated sprang down into the fight, bringing axes and clubs in
their hands. They charged the petty-captain.
Now it was Fortune who had his back to the rocks. He had no time to
choose a position, but leaped blindly and faced the mob.
His shining blade fell with a force that beat down the other’s weapon
and caught him across the shoulder. From the jar of that blow Fortune
knew the steel had met steel. His opponent’s blue denim covered chain
mail.
Armed with that knowledge, he struck again, aiming high, and the blade
pierced at the base of the neck.
Even as he realized he had dealt a death wound, Fortune staggered
beneath a buffet from an ugly club. An ax was aimed at his thigh and
its keen blade ripped open his leather boot. A rock crashed against
his helmet.
The six snarled about him like a pack of dogs about a cornered fox.
Leaping out of range of the singing sword, they thrust with their
clubs, hurled rocks, and threw the keen-edged axes. A trickle of red
blood ran from Fortune’s cheek, and one eye began to swell shut where a
stone had caught him. In his giddiness the solid earth seemed to rise
at him in waves like the sea.
Then from behind the road-menders came a bellow of warning as Ham
hurled himself from the fallen trunk into the fight.
Ham’s sword had time to thrust but once, and the six were in flight.
One of them limped from a cut in the leg. The roly-poly man-at-arms
fairly trumpeted in his rage as he chased the scattering mob. Fortune,
seeing dimly, was aware that Ham had cut down the wounded man. Then
his knees weakened and he slid to the earth, fighting against an
overwhelming nausea.
“They’re gone,” Ham was shouting in his ear, “may their bones boil in
everlasting fires! Come, captain, how is it with you?”
Ham helped his master to rise. From his flask that hung at his belt he
gave him water, and Fortune presently declared himself normal.
“I’ll have a look at this carrion,” he cried, bending over the dead
swordsman. “Since when, I wonder, have the Folk been given swords and
chain mail to battle in?”
He ripped away the blue denim cloth and exposed the dead man’s shirt of
mail. “Look, Ham,” he bade; “look at this hand. White and hard, but
straight in the fingers, and clean, too! That is no dog from the Under
City.”
“Ah, and what’s this?” shouted Ham, snatching at a cord around the dead
man’s neck. “Look, captain!”
Ham held up in his palm a gold ring. It had been fastened to a loop of
cord and hidden under the mailed shirt.
Fortune examined the ring with keen interest. It was cleverly carved
on one side in the fashion of a coiled snake. The work was from a
master jeweler’s hand.
But what made Fortune catch his breath was the knowledge that that same
coiled snake was the device which had sealed the note sent to his
over-captain Engard–the note that preceded treachery on the Great
Wall. Again he was facing that mystery.
“Have a look at your man,” he directed Ham, and slipped the gold ring
over his finger.
The other fellow was a dirty nondescript, plainly one of the Folk.
“Then there’s no more to be learned here,” Fortune decided. “Is your
horse alive?”
Ham’s horse was safe. With a vast amount of labor they got it over the
oak tree that blocked the road.
“Another march for me,” grumbled Ham. “Well, I’m old and tough!”
“No need,” his master ordered quickly. “Get up behind me; you deserve
that much. This makes the seventh time–and I will not forget, Ham.”
“Good,” grunted Ham, rolling his eyes in gratitude. “Now I know I
shall live in a tower when you become a great person.”
Ham’s horse, carrying double, did little better than a rapid walk.
Frequently now they came to a road that was paved with old stone, but
mostly this was paving that dated beyond the Great Catastrophe, and so
ragged from age and hard to use that it was worse than none. But it
served as a mile-post in their progress, and they were relieved to know
that by nightfall they could reach the Great Hall of Wolff.
“What did a road-mender with a sword?” Ham exclaimed after a long
silence.
“Ah,” said Fortune with a sarcasm lost on his man, “you noticed that?
And chain mail, too.”
“Yes, and a gold ring!”
“Some rogue who killed his master and robbed him,” suggested Fortune.
He did not share all his secrets with the loquacious Ham.
“Such things are bad,” muttered Ham, shaking his head. “Bad; very bad.
There are too many folk rebelling lately. It’s not like the good old
days. They say that Wolff–“
“Leave that unsaid,” Fortune warned him. “Who are you to speak at all
of Wolff?”
Fortune pulled their horse to a stop at the summit of a long hill. He
pointed silently to what lay beyond.
“The great city,” he exclaimed with a happy sigh. “And I have been no
closer for almost a year!”
The slope of the eminence had been partially cleared of its jungle, and
they could see out across some miles of the greenery. The picture
glowed fair in the golden afternoon sun; gentle rolling hills covered
with verdure much as before for a stretch of several miles, except that
more of the ruined walls broke their even flow of line.
But beyond that, taller walls rose, one or two to a great height, and
there were signs of smoke that told these shells sheltered human life.
And faintly blue against the limpid blue of the sky they saw a slender
spire that thrust upward like a sword blade at salute, Wolff’s Tower.
“Beautiful!” cried Fortune. “Something fine awaits us there; I know
it!”
“Ho!” Ham shouted boisterously. “Food and drink, and a soft bed. Fine
clothing, and perhaps that plump maid!”
Fortune spurred their horse impatiently.
Several miles more and the forest thinned out and fell behind them for
long stretches. Their road became a hard street with a semblance of
buildings, mostly empty, at either side, crumbling walls, blackened by
fires and split by earth shocks.
Great heaps of rubbish frequently turned their horse from the straight
path. Fallen walls had blocked the street, and in other places it
gaped in vast, ragged holes where the masonry had dropped into ditches
that ran underneath.
By token of a once lovely column, broken, in half its length, and
surrounded by the battered torsos of carved stone figures, they knew
they had reached the Towerman’s Road, the same thoroughfare that the
ancients before their time knew as the Broad Way of the once imperial
city.
Now they passed an occasional rude cart piled high with green
vegetables or goods, and each drawn by a dozen of the blue-clad Folk
yoked to its long tongue. With their progress these moved slowly out
of their path, the overseers who rode on them coming to a rigid salute
at sight of Fortune’s red-and-white feather of rank; the panting men
who dragged them rolling their eyes and staring mightily.
Added to the traffic of slow-moving carts, as they neared their goal,
were occasional officers like Fortune, mounted and accompanied by
servants who rode or ran behind. Then, too, appeared gilded chairs,
each borne high on poles by two runners in livery, its curtains hiding
some woman of consequence.
They passed numerous gangs of road-menders, and now and then artisans
tearing down old walls or building the old stones into new ones.
Commanding a great open space surrounded by several buildings of
magnificent height and fair preservation, they saw a square tower that
overshadowed everything about it. The eye of a scientist or student of
ruins would have noted that once this tower must have risen even a
third higher than its present stature. Its roof was flat and rude,
incongruous to the noble architecture of the walls, and evidently
makeshift. But still it was imposing.
In ancient days the space before this tower evidently had been a large
public square or plaza. A tangle of unkempt greenery told the story of
what once had been a fine park, and just north of this stood a vast and
noble arch of stone, broken in its height, but compelling admiration
even in ruin. The place was a little below midway of the island, and
the northern outskirt of the city as men knew it in Fortune’s day.
From the tower roof flew the flag of the Comptroller Frederick, and
before its entrance was gathered a group of armed men.
“The home of the old Red Fox,” muttered Ham.
“Careful,” cautioned Fortune in a whisper. “Call no man out of his
name.”
They were not long past this tower, traveling always south, and once
again among ruins and a wilderness of trees and creepers, when they
heard the clatter of horses behind them. Giving a half of the road,
they made way for six or eight mounted officers of the army of the
Directorate.
As they passed, this group stared with all their eyes at Fortune and
his servant, huddled together on the wearied horse. Several apparently
recognized the identity of the young hero of the wall, but another, a
dapper, black-haired man who wore the red feather of a captain, laughed
mockingly. Leaning toward his companion, he made a remark, and then
both looked over their shoulders and laughed.
Fortune, in the act of returning the careless salutes of the group,
stiffened in his saddle and felt his face burn red. Impulsively he
spurred at the tired horse, as if to ride forward and resent the jeer.
But Ham’s weary steed only stumbled and almost pitched them to the
stones.
Before the horse had recovered, the group had gone out of reach.
“Ham,” cried Fortune, unreasonably venting his injured feeling on the
servant, “get down. It is not fitting you should ride behind me,
and–and–by the torch, no man shall laugh at me again!”
Ham slipped obediently to his feet. His hand on Fortune’s stirrup, he
plodded beside the weary horse.
Now that sword blade of a tower that had beckoned them from the hill
came into sight again and began to dominate the ragged horizon of
ruined city and encroaching wilderness. Its western walls burned
reddish gold with the evening light, and the eye, measuring its slender
elegance, was held entranced alike by line and color.
It seemed to pierce the very secret of the greenish evening skies, and
from its top, just below the topmost of the mounting spires, rose a
long serpent of smoke that shone like gold against the clear green.
Always while the Great Towerman ruled Manhattan, that plume of smoke
curled upward in triumph.
But down along the Broad Way or Towerman’s Road the evening shadows
were blue and becoming denser. Ruined walls leaned threateningly
against them, and the rubbish heaps made the travel slow.
With a warning shout a servant in livery of flaming red darted past and
waved them to one side. Behind this runner, at a stiff trot, came
others, bearing a curtained litter.
It happened that just here one of the fallen walls had made the way
narrow. Fortune on his horse was forced hard against an old wall while
the running men slowed to pick their road past him.
The litter brushed close against the young petty-captain and as he
stared the curtain was pushed aside and a woman’s face, pale in the
twilight, peered at him.
Fortune stared a moment into eyes black as midnight. He had time to
note the wisp of hair of a rich dull red that coiled about the pale
cheek; then the curtain was closed with an impatient twitch even as his
hand was raised in courteous salute.
Just beyond them the litter was stopped a moment. One of its attendant
group of servants in red came running back.
The man bared his head civilly before Fortune. “Your pardon, captain,”
he panted, “the lady desires to know your name and post.”
“Fortune, the petty-captain of the great wall,” said the young man
proudly. “And tell me who–” He broke off his sentence and added
angrily, “Hang the rascal, he’s impudent!” For the servant,
disregarding his question, had pushed forward again at a run.
“Why ask?” growled Ham excitedly. “By all the gods, the answer’s plain
enough. Who could it be than Alda, the daughter of Wolff himself!
Those rascals wear Wolff’s coat.”
“Alda!” Fortune echoed. He was surprised and flattered immensely. His
own recollection of Alda, seen only from a humble distance, verified
Ham’s guess. He had scarcely reached the city, and a great lady had
stopped to learn his name–the most high-born of all the island women
had noticed him!
“What did I tell you?” crowed Ham. “The great women are smiling
already. Ho, when I find that maid you’ll be picking and choosing too!”
“Perhaps,” said Fortune, “some day.” Then he sighed unexpectedly.
“There is another woman I choose first,” he went on. “Ham, we’ll find
her again, to-morrow or next day–as quickly as I can get free. You
remember?”
“The woman of the isle?” Ham exclaimed incredulously. “Will you never
stop talking of her!”
“Never until she’s mine,” Fortune exclaimed. “And, Ham, I’ll make her
mine–I’ve earned that much reward already.”
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