David Drake: Patriots

Dr. Jesilind was a pompous twit. Well, out of charity, Mark decided to substitute "eccentric" in his mind. On the other hand, Jesilind was a distraction in a place that was rubbing Mark's spirits to the gray hue of the concrete walls.

"I'd be pleased to sit with you," Mark said. It occurred to Mark that Quelhagen formality made him sound like a pompous twit in this setting.

Like all the other parts of the caravansary, the benches were concrete. More than fifty of the building's residents sat on them-talking, eating, and smoking various herbs in rolls or pipes. Some had brought over buckets or packing crates as additional seating so that members of a party could face each other as they socialized and played cards. The caravansary's windowless rooms were secure, but the jails of a civilized planet had more amenities.

Mark avoided a patch where the bench's surface had flaked away to the wire-net reinforcement. He didn't worry about dampness, because his coveralls were waterproof. Anyway, everything on this planet was wet or about to become wet.

Jesilind tutted and unrolled a cushion, which he spread without inflating. "It leaks," Jesilind admitted when he noticed Mark's surprise that he didn't blow the cushion up. "But I'm a philosopher, sir, and I believe hardship is good for the soul."

Dittersdorf's gray misery made Mark think of throwing himself off a high building, not of the soul's nobility, but no two people were the same. And some people lied, of course.

"You're a, ah, teacher, sir?" Mark asked.

"I like to say that all wisdom is my subject," Jesilind said, buffing his nails again as he smiled, "but my profession as such is medicine. I serve a varied clientele on Greenwood. I accompanied Mr. Bannock to Kilbourn in order to purchase pharmaceuticals and of course, to see what books might have penetrated to such a distance from Earth."

"You went to Kilbourn for that?" Mark said. According to his gazetteer, Kilbourn was the rawest edge of the frontier.

"Yes, I ignore inconvenience when the welfare of my patients is at stake," Jesilind said. "Besides, if I treat with local herbs, the yokels don't like to pay what my services are worth."

A look of lacquered cunning flickered across Jesilind's face. He added, "And I thought a person of my accomplishments should be present to accompany Miss Bannock from Kilbourn to Greenwood. Yerby's a fine man in his way, salt of the earth. But not, as I'm sure you appreciate, the sort of person who should be sole escort to a girl like his sister. She was delicately brought up on Kilbourn, and she's only now leaving boarding school there."

"Hey, look at the scarecrow!" called a man, one of Mayor Biber's servants. They'd apparently gotten the baggage arranged to their satisfaction in Room 37 and were reemerging with a hamper of food.

"Go stand in a field, pretty boy," the leader of the group said. He planted himself on the bench so close that his hip jostled the doctor aside. Jesilind jumped up. He bounced back down again because the stranger was sitting on the tail of his frock coat.

"Hey, Griggs," laughed the man with the hamper. "Better give him his jacket back. That color don't suit you no better than it does him."

Griggs eased his weight off the fabric and shoved Jesilind away from the bench. "Go away, boy," Griggs said, with contempt rather than anger.

Jesilind focused tightly on Mark as though Biber's chuckling servants didn't exist and said, "Mr. Maxwell, at this time I always meditate alone. Good day, sir. I trust we'll have another chance to converse before we go our separate ways."

The doctor bowed, took a step, and tripped over the Zeniths' hamper. Jesilind scrabbled forward like a large bird lifting off. By the time he'd risen from all fours, he was halfway to the rooms and moving at a dead run. The yellow coat flapped behind him.

"Scarecrow!" Griggs cried, and spun the cushion toward its fleeing owner.

Mark stood also. "I think I'll study for a while myself, Doctor," he said for politeness' sake, not that Jesilind could hear him. "Good day."

He walked to Room 36, being careful about where he put his feet. The servants from Zenith ignored him.

Caravansary rooms didn't have built-in locks. There was a rugged staple and strap on both the inside and the outside of each door. The occupant provided his own padlock to secure the space.

Mark's lock was Terran, sturdy and expensive. It was programmable to a variety of different styles, but he'd set it to open from the pressure of both his thumbs together. He unlocked Room 36, switched on the tiny area light he carried in a pocket, and closed the door behind him. He dropped the padlock's hasp through the staple from the other side, though he didn't bother to lock it.

The room's interior was about as inviting as a crocodile's gullet.

Rooms in the caravansary were six feet by ten, with a half loft overhead reached by a metal ladder. Occupants could use the low benches cast into the back and side walls to sit, sleep, or place their goods out of the slight pool of water in the middle of the floor.

There were no lights, no running water, and no toilet facilities of any kind. At the rear of the caravansary were a common latrine and eight shower heads that ran constantly at full force-Dittersdorf Major had no shortage of fresh water.

The showers were, however, cold water only. Mark had learned that shortly after he arrived.

Mark had prepared for his journey to the frontier with the same degree of organization that had earned him his degree. He'd read-sleep-learned, for the most part-both official and private accounts of life on the frontier, then listed the items he would need.

Mayor Heinrich Biber's twelve large cases might have been enough to hold the proposed gear; then again, they might not. The trouble was that "the frontier" was an expanding region, not a place.

Mark's information about Kilbourn was slight and certainly out of date if the planet really had a boarding school for "delicately brought-up" girls, as Dr. Jesilind had implied. Besides, even if Mark had really been sure of the conditions at his intended destination, there were the intermediate landfalls like Dittersdorf to consider.

The second time through, Mark cut his list to what would fit in one fifty-pound pack. That was the most weight he was sure he could handle by himself in rugged conditions. Everything he carried was rugged, weatherproof, and so far as possible multifunctional. The hypnagogue, for example, could project text as holograms as well as sleep-teaching the contents of a book chip, and it functioned as a database.

Also, Mark brought money. The line of credit from his father had been long enough for him to book passage on a yacht if he needed to (and if there were any yachts around, which there certainly weren't any place Mark had seen since he left Landingplace on Quelhagen). Lucius didn't approve of Mark's choice, but he stuck to the bargain he'd made with his son: a year on the frontier, followed by either apprenticeship as an attorney on Quelhagen or a complete end to monetary support. It was hard to tell what Lucius thought about the details, but he'd never been one to stint with his backing for something he'd agreed to do.

Room 36 would sleep six merchants and their goods in as much comfort as damp concrete could offer. Several of the caravansary's rooms were now occupied by extended families of a dozen or more, squalling and quarreling in search of a new life at the lowest possible cost. Mark didn't want a companion and the room's slight cost wasn't a factor, but he sometimes wondered if a smaller space might not have oppressed him less.

Sighing, Mark took his hypnagogue from its stiffened pouch on the side of his pack. Three landfalls out from Quelhagen he'd picked up a book chip on the geography and history of the Digits. This seemed to be a good time to read it.