Read Online The Magnificent Showboats by Jack Vance - Free Book Online
Authors: Jack Vance
Tags: SF
Ads: Link
Blanche-Aster unenthusiastically took the guitar, fingered the strings and placed it on the table. “It is tuned incorrectly.”
“Tell me how you prefer the tuning.”
Damsel Blanche-Aster herself tuned the guitar, then played a slow simple melody to a twanging of rhythmic chords. “The song has words, which I have forgotten.” She again placed the guitar on the table and rose to her feet. “I am not in the mood to play; please excuse me.” She departed the cabin.
Zamp followed her out on deck. The sun had set behind the low banks of the Lant; twilight sky reflected on the water. Zamp called Bonko and gave orders for the evening: “The wind seems fresh and fair; we will sail until night grows dark, then anchor in the stream. Put out robber nets and post a four-man look-out. This is nomad country, and vigilance is necessary.”
Zamp took the guitar to the quarterdeck and sat for a half-hour playing idle chords, but Damsel Blanche-Aster after standing at the bow returned aft and went below to her cabin.
Chapter V
On the afternoon of the second day out of Lanteen Port Whant appeared on the north bank: a cramped cluster of two- and three-storied houses constructed of timber and plastered stone, with roofs meeting and joining and slanting at every angle. Zamp had arrayed Miraldra’s Enchantment in its most festive guise. Screens of withe and wood towered above the midship gunwales to suggest an imposing castle; aloft fluttered flags and bunting of white and green: the colors least offensive to the Whants.
With maximum display, Miraldra’s Enchantment approached the Port Whant dock, flags fluttering, tumblers cart-wheeling to the music of belphorns, drums and screedles. Back and forth across the triatic stay marched acrobats carrying advertising placards and the emblem of Port Whant. The girls of the troupe lined the parapets of the simulated castle, wearing gowns of pale blue, to indicate a state of demure chastity.
A dozen or so folk from the town sauntered out upon the docks. They wore shapeless cloaks of dark brown furze and stood in small silent groups; Zamp signaled his troupe to even greater efforts.
The boat glided up to the dock; hawsers were dropped over bollards; the vessel was warped close to the dock and made secure. Meanwhile the troupe exerted itself to the utmost. The tumblers leaped, caracoled, turned back-flips; the acrobats pretended to fall from the stay, catching themselves by one last grasp; the girls, now in transparent hip-length smocks of pale blue gauze, to combine the maximum titillation with the minimum provocation, leapt back and forth across the upper windows of the simulated castle.
More folk from the town came out on the dock, hunched in a dour and almost sullen silence. Zamp was not discouraged; each community along the river had its distinctive style: Port Whant was notoriously wary with strangers.
The gangplank was lowered to the dock; Zamp stepped out upon the landing. He looked back over his shoulder and gave a merry flourish of arm and hand; the frenzied demonstration instantly halted and the members of the troupe gratefully descended to the main deck.
Zamp paused a moment, the better to focus the attention of his audience. He wore one of his most elaborate costumes: a wide-brimmed brown hat with a great orange plume; a doublet striped orange and black belted over loose brown breeches, foppish knee-high boots precisely creased and pleated. The faces looking up from the dock expressed neither hostility nor friendliness nor even much interest; Zamp felt only a condition of introverted gloom. Hardly a handsome folk, he thought; both men and women showed pale broad faces, lank black hair, heavy black eyebrows, burly physiques. Still, for all the apparent uniformity of garb and appearance, the sense of personality and self-autonomy was strong: perhaps as a result of the brooding melancholy which Zamp now determined to dispel. He held up his hands. “Friends of Port Whant! I am
“Tell me how you prefer the tuning.”
Damsel Blanche-Aster herself tuned the guitar, then played a slow simple melody to a twanging of rhythmic chords. “The song has words, which I have forgotten.” She again placed the guitar on the table and rose to her feet. “I am not in the mood to play; please excuse me.” She departed the cabin.
Zamp followed her out on deck. The sun had set behind the low banks of the Lant; twilight sky reflected on the water. Zamp called Bonko and gave orders for the evening: “The wind seems fresh and fair; we will sail until night grows dark, then anchor in the stream. Put out robber nets and post a four-man look-out. This is nomad country, and vigilance is necessary.”
Zamp took the guitar to the quarterdeck and sat for a half-hour playing idle chords, but Damsel Blanche-Aster after standing at the bow returned aft and went below to her cabin.
Chapter V
On the afternoon of the second day out of Lanteen Port Whant appeared on the north bank: a cramped cluster of two- and three-storied houses constructed of timber and plastered stone, with roofs meeting and joining and slanting at every angle. Zamp had arrayed Miraldra’s Enchantment in its most festive guise. Screens of withe and wood towered above the midship gunwales to suggest an imposing castle; aloft fluttered flags and bunting of white and green: the colors least offensive to the Whants.
With maximum display, Miraldra’s Enchantment approached the Port Whant dock, flags fluttering, tumblers cart-wheeling to the music of belphorns, drums and screedles. Back and forth across the triatic stay marched acrobats carrying advertising placards and the emblem of Port Whant. The girls of the troupe lined the parapets of the simulated castle, wearing gowns of pale blue, to indicate a state of demure chastity.
A dozen or so folk from the town sauntered out upon the docks. They wore shapeless cloaks of dark brown furze and stood in small silent groups; Zamp signaled his troupe to even greater efforts.
The boat glided up to the dock; hawsers were dropped over bollards; the vessel was warped close to the dock and made secure. Meanwhile the troupe exerted itself to the utmost. The tumblers leaped, caracoled, turned back-flips; the acrobats pretended to fall from the stay, catching themselves by one last grasp; the girls, now in transparent hip-length smocks of pale blue gauze, to combine the maximum titillation with the minimum provocation, leapt back and forth across the upper windows of the simulated castle.
More folk from the town came out on the dock, hunched in a dour and almost sullen silence. Zamp was not discouraged; each community along the river had its distinctive style: Port Whant was notoriously wary with strangers.
The gangplank was lowered to the dock; Zamp stepped out upon the landing. He looked back over his shoulder and gave a merry flourish of arm and hand; the frenzied demonstration instantly halted and the members of the troupe gratefully descended to the main deck.
Zamp paused a moment, the better to focus the attention of his audience. He wore one of his most elaborate costumes: a wide-brimmed brown hat with a great orange plume; a doublet striped orange and black belted over loose brown breeches, foppish knee-high boots precisely creased and pleated. The faces looking up from the dock expressed neither hostility nor friendliness nor even much interest; Zamp felt only a condition of introverted gloom. Hardly a handsome folk, he thought; both men and women showed pale broad faces, lank black hair, heavy black eyebrows, burly physiques. Still, for all the apparent uniformity of garb and appearance, the sense of personality and self-autonomy was strong: perhaps as a result of the brooding melancholy which Zamp now determined to dispel. He held up his hands. “Friends of Port Whant! I am
Similar Books
