Space Viking | Page 6

who's swindled me out of command of the Enterprise. You're all
plotting against me--"
"Sir Nevil," Grauffis said, "you can see that Lord Dunnan's not himself.
If you're a good friend to him, you'll get him out of here before Duke
Angus arrives."
Ormm leaned forward and spoke urgently in Dunnan's ear. Dunnan
pushed him angrily away.
"Great Satan, are you against me, too?" he demanded.
Ormm caught his arm. "You fool, do you want to ruin everything,
now--" He lowered his voice; the rest was inaudible.
"No, curse you, I won't go till I've spoken to her, face to face--"
* * * * *
There was another stir among the spectators; the crowd was parting,

and Elaine was coming through, followed by her mother and Lady
Sandrasan and five or six other matrons. They all had their shawls over
their heads, right ends over left shoulders; they all stopped except
Elaine, who took a few steps forward and confronted Andray Dunnan.
He had never seen her look more beautiful, but it was the icy beauty of
a honed dagger.
"Lord Dunnan, what do you wish to say to me?" she asked. "Say it
quickly and then go; you are not welcome here."
"Elaine!" Dunnan cried, taking a step forward. "Why do you cover your
head; why do you speak to me as a stranger? I am Andray, who loves
you. Why are you letting them force you into this wicked marriage?"
"No one is forcing me; I am marrying Lord Trask willingly and happily,
because I love him. Now, please, go and make no more trouble at my
wedding."
"That's a lie! They're making you say that! You don't have to marry
him; they can't make you. Come with me now. They won't dare stop
you. I'll take you away from all these cruel, greedy people. You love
me, you've always loved me. You've told me you loved me, again and
again--"
Yes, in his own private dream-world, a world of fantasy that had now
become Andray Dunnan's reality, in which an Elaine Karvall whom his
imagination had created existed only to love him. Confronted by the
real Elaine, he simply rejected the reality.
"I never loved you, Lord Dunnan, and I never told you so. I never hated
you, either, but you are making it very hard for me not to. Now go, and
never let me see you again."
With that, she turned and started back through the crowd, which parted
in front of her. Her mother and her aunt and the other ladies followed.
"You lied to me!" Dunnan shrieked after her. "You lied all the time.
You're as bad as the rest of them, all scheming and plotting against me,

betraying me. I know what it's about; you all want to cheat me of my
rights, and keep my usurping uncle on the ducal throne. And you, you
false-hearted harlot, you're the worst of them all!"
Sir Nevil Ormm caught his shoulder and spun him around, propelling
him toward the escalators. Dunnan struggled, screaming inarticulately
like a wounded wolf. Ormm was cursing furiously.
"You two!" he shouted. "Help me, here. Get hold of him."
Dunnan was still howling as they forced him onto the escalator, the
backs of the two retainers' cloaks, badged with the Dunnan crescent,
light blue on black, hiding him. After a little, an aircar with the blue
crescent blazonry lifted and sped away.
"Lucas, he's crazy," Sesar Karvall was insisting. "Elaine hasn't spoken
fifty words to him since he came back from his last voyage--"
He laughed and put a hand on Karvall's shoulder. "I know that, Sesar.
You don't think, do you, that I need assurance of it?"
"Crazy, I'll say he's crazy," Rovard Grauffis put in. "Did you hear what
he said about his rights? Wait till his Grace hears about that."
"Does he lay claim to the ducal throne, Sir Rovard?" Otto Harkaman
asked, sharply and seriously.
"Oh, he claims that his mother was born a year and a half before Duke
Angus and the true date of her birth falsified to give Angus the
succession. Why, his present Grace was three years old when she was
born. I was old Duke Fergus' esquire; I carried Angus on my shoulder
when Andray Dunnan's mother was presented to the lords and barons
the day after she was born."
"Of course he's crazy," Alex Gorram agreed. "I don't know why the
Duke doesn't have him put under psychiatric treatment."
"I'd put him under treatment," Harkaman said, drawing a finger across

under his beard. "Crazy men who pretend to thrones are bombs that
ought to be deactivated, before they blow things up."
"We couldn't do that," Grauffis said. "After all, he's Duke Angus'
nephew--"
"I could do it," Harkaman said. "He only has