Read Online The Avatar by Poul Anderson - Free Book Online Page A

wish Trollberg was in my neighborhood. Or, leastwise, that I’d had hap to see you come by afore. Uh… walk you always?”
    She nodded. “What for would I be driving, and never knowing through what I passed?”
    “But where stay you the nights over? I’ve heard nil talk of your visiting our scant inns, though more than two landlords tell how they’d pay you well for an evening’s entertainment.”
    She smiled to show she took no offense as she replied, “Bards sing not for gain, Freeholder Daukantas, and a bard I reckon myself to be, if scarcely any Brian Merriman. We may receive gifts, but we sing for love or hospitality. I stay where they give me welcome, else spread my sack on the lodix.”
    In his awkwardness he exclaimed, “But what live you on?” and then burned in the cheeks at his gaucherie.
    “Are you embarrassed, now?” she said cheerfully, with a pat for his hand where it clenched the rail. “Why, they all ask me that.” She shifted on purpose into flat Eopolitan. “I’m medically trained, though no physician. Winters, I work in the city and its hinterland, out of St. Enoch Hospital. The doctor shortage pretty well lets me set whatever terms I want. Of course, were I a decent person, I’d work full time. But when my lifespan won’t reach to exploring Demeter—” She tautened. “And when I have to see people hurting—” She broke off, shivered the tension out, and laughed. “Mercy alive, but I’ve talked about myself, right enough! Shall we be speaking of you?”
    “There’s naught to tell, my lady. This is my father’s stead, and I his third son.”
    She cocked her head. “You’re a bachelor, then?”
    He nodded. “Tja, you know our custom in the uplands. When I am married, we can stay in the big house as partners, or we can get help to clear land and raise a dwelling for ourselves. I, I think I’ll pick that. The new start.”
    “And you’ve no girl to tell you her wishes in the matter?”
    “No. Someday—But this is a scoopful about me, uh, uh, Cathleen,” he said in a rush. “Will you spend the night with us? I promise the whole gang will be delighted.”
    She glanced west. Though shadows were getting long and the mountains turning purple, Phoebus had an hour or better before the horizon captured it. “I thank you and I thank your kin,” she answered. “But I should be at Trollberg inside three days, andmy plan was for keeping on past sunset, since Persephone will be rising full, big and bright as Luna over Earth.” Erion, half that apparent size, was already up, its curve ivory upon indigo.
    “I’ll drive you tomorrow, as far as you like,” he offered. Her expression betokened reluctance. He grew clever. “Yes, you want to be near the land. Well, here’s a family in it you’ve nay met. Our home, our manners, they should interest you, they’re unusual, I swear; we’re no Swedes or British or—Please! You’d make us hurrah. We’d never forget.”
    “We-ell….” She eased, smiled, moved closer, fluttered her lashes the least bit. “It’s too kind you are, Elias Daukantas, and sure I’d be of a good evening, stayed I there. So if you are certain that himself will not object—”
    A whirr loudened. Turning, they saw a small car approach. Its air cushion threw dust right and left like the foam at the bow of a speeding boat. It reached them and braked in a roar. Tripods slammed down. The bubble top dilated. A big man tumbled out. “Caitlín!” he bawled.
    She dropped her sonador. “Dan, oh, Dan!” She sped to him.
    They grabbed each other. After a while his mouth left hers and sought her ear. “Listen, macushla,” he whispered. “I’m on the run. Hunted. My name is Dan Smith. Okay?”
    “Okay,” she breathed back. He felt the elastic slimness of her, smelled sunlight odors of hair and warmer odors of flesh. “What is your wish, my heart?”
    “Get the devil out of here, to some safe hiding place. Then we’ll talk.” Brodersen had all he could do