THE MAGIC LABYRINTH

While going back to the boat, Loghu introduced the others. All except Burton were using their native names. He had decided this time not to use his old half-Arab, half-Pathan guise, not to be Mirza Abdullah Bushiri or Abdul Hassan or any of the many similar guises he'd used on Earth and here. This time, for a reason he didn't explain to his companions, he was posing as Gwalchgwy

"It means ‘White Hawk,' Your Majesty," he said.

"So?" John said. "You are very dark for a white hawk."

Kazz, the Neanderthal male, rumbled, "He is a great swordsman and marksman, Your Majesty. He would be a good fighter for you."

"Perhaps I'll give him a chance to demonstrate his skill sometime," John said.

John looked through lowered lids at Kazz. John was five feet four inches in stature, but he looked tall alongside the Neanderthal. Kazz was squat and big-boned, as all early Old Stone Agers were. His breadloaf-shaped head, the low slanting forehead, thick shelving brows, broad flat nose, and very protruding jaws didn't make him handsome. But he was not subhuman-appearing like the Neanderthals in illustrations or the early reconstructions in museums. He was hairy but no more than the most hirsute of Homo sapiens.

His mate, Besst, was several inches shorter than he and just as unprepossessing.

John was interested in the two of them, however, They were small, but their strength was enormous, and both male and female would be good warriors. The low brows did not necessarily front a low intelligence since the gamut of brilliance to stupidity was the same in Neanderthals as in that of modern humanity.

Half of John's complement was early Paleolithic: John, nicknamed Lackland because for a long time he'd not been able to possess the states he claimed title to, was the younger brother of King Richard I the Lion-hearted, the monarch to whom the legendary Robin Hood remained loyal while John ruled England as regent. He had broad shoulders and an athletic sturdy frame, a heavy jaw, tawny hair, blue eyes, and a terrible temper, though that was nothing unusual for a medieval king. He'd had a very bad reputation during and after his death, though he was no worse than many kings before or since and better than his brother. Contemporary and later chroniclers united to present an unfair portrait of him. He was so loathed that it became a tradition that no one of the British royal family should be named John.

Richard had designated his nephew, Arthur of Brittany, as his heir. John had refused to accept this, and, while fighting Arthur, had captured him and then imprisoned him in the castle of Falaise and later in Rouen. There Richard's nephew disappeared under circumstances which made most people believe that John had slain him and then thrown the weighted body into the Seine. John had never denied or confirmed the accusations.

Another blot on his record, .though no larger or blacker than that on the records of many monarchs, was the undeniable fact that he had caused to be starved to death the wife and son of an enemy, the Baron de Braose.

There were many more stories, some of which were true, about his evil deeds. But not until many centuries later did objective historians record that he had also done much good for England.

Burton didn't know much about John's life on the River-world except that he had stolen Samuel Clemens' boat. He also knew that it would not be discreet to mention this to John.

The monarch himself was their guide. He showed them almost everything from the lowest deck to the top, the boiler, main, hurricane, flight, and texas deck, an extension from the lower story of the two-story pilothouse. While they were in the pilothouse, Alice told the king that she was his descendant through his son, John of Gaunt.

"Indeed," he said. "Were you then a princess or a queen?"

"Not even of the nobility," she said. "Though I was of the gentry. My father was a relative of Baron Ravensworth. I was born in the Year of Our Lord 1852, when Victoria, another descendant of yours, was queen."

The king's tawny eyebrows rose.

"You are the first descendant of mine I've ever met. A very pretty one, too."

"Thank you, Sire."

Burton burned even more. Was John contemplating incest, however rarified the consanguinity might be?

John had apparently been considering taking all of them on as crewmembers, and Alice's distant kinship decided him. After they had gone to the grand salon for a drink, he told them that they could, if they wished, travel the river with him. He told them in detail, first, what the general duties of the crew were and what the discipline consisted of, and then demanded they swear an oath of fealty to him.

So far, John had not followed up on his intimations that Loghu go to bed with him, but he undoubtedly meant to. Burton asked if he could talk to the others privately for a minute. John graciously gave permission, and they went to a corner to talk.

"I don't mind," Loghu said. "I might even like it. I've never been mounted by a king. Anyway, I have no man now and I haven't since that bastard Frigate ran out on us. John isn't a bad looker at all, even if he is shorter than I am."

On Earth, Alice would have been horrified. But she'd seen too much and changed too much; most of her Victorian attitudes had long dissipated.

"As long as it's voluntary," she said, "then it's not wrong."

"I'd do it if it were wrong," Loghu said. "We have too much at stake for me to be squeamish."

"I don't like it," Burton said. He was relieved but didn't want to admit it. "But if we miss this boat, we may not get a chance to get on the other. I'd say that boarding the Mark Twain would be as difficult as it would be for a politician to get into Heaven.

"However, if he should mistreat you..."

"Oh, I can take care of myself," Loghu said. "If I can't throw that runt clear across the cabin, I've lost my touch! As a last resort I can crack his nuts."

Alice hadn't changed so much that she didn't blush.

"He might even make you his Number One mistress," Kazz said. "Haw! That'd make you queen then! Hail, Queen Loghu!"

"I'm more worried about his current mistress than I am about him," Loghu said. "John wouldn't stab me in the back, though he might try to take me in the rear, but his woman might put a knife in my spine."

"I still feel like a pimp," Burton said.

"Why should you? You don't own me."

They returned to John and told him that they wished to take the oath.

John ordered drinks for the occasion. After these, he had his executive officer, a huge late-twentieth-century Yank named Augustus Strubewell, make arrangements for the swearing-in that evening.

Two days later, the Rex up-anchored and set out up-River. Alice was attached as a nurse to the staff of one of the boat's physicians, a Doctor Doyle. Loghu was to be trained as a pilot, after which she would be officially a pilot second-class, extra. The duties would require only that she substitute if one of the second-class pilots was unavailable. She would have plenty of spare time unless John kept her busy in his suite, which he did for some time to come. The woman she dispossessed seemed to be angry about it, but was only pretending. She'd been getting as tired of John as he of her.

Kazz and Burton were ranked as privates in the marines. Kazz was an axeman; Burton, a pistoleer and rapiersman. Besst was put among the women archers.

One of the first things that Burton did was find out who on the boat claimed to have lived past A.D. 1983. There were four. One was Strubewell. He'd been with John when he hijacked the boat.