Peregrine: Primus by Avram Davidson

Author:Avram Davidson [Davidson, Avram]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0441659500
Publisher: Ace Books
Published: 1977-10-03T08:00:00+00:00

PART 4

The Hun hordes filled the scene as far as the eye could reach; however, there in that bend of the river, sunken rather deep between over-hanging bluffs, the eye could not reach very far. Emotion aboard the sailing-barge Homoiousios was in a state of flux. Augustus the Penurious, for example, even rose up a little ways off his bags of baggage and surveyed his captors with something like, first, surprise, and second, a rather cautious gratification. And in a moment, when one of the Huns rode, splashing, up to the side, his thin mouth open in a cruel and hungry leer, Augustus even rose to his full height as though the better to be seen. Then he gave a satisfied nod, and spoke.

“Hail,” he said. “/I’ve Attila IV, Grand Hetman of the Hun Hordes, Scourge of God, King of Hun Horde Number Seventeen, and,” and here he cleared his throat and gave a meaningful glance at the Hun on the horse, “and Ally of the Central Roman Empire. Hem.”

The man so addressed seemed by no means totally pleased to have been identified so precisely. He rode even nearer, he squinted and scowled, then he spat.

“What?” he asked. “You Gustav Caesar Twennyfi’?”

“Even so.”

The Hun king plucked off his exceedingly greasy little fur bonnet and cast it into the water, and endeavored to direct his horse to trample on it. “Goddamn,” he muttered. “Sunnamabitch Caesar, all-same ally. Rotten roundeyes fucken foreign-devil king. Oh, sit. Horse-sit.” Then he wheeled about to confront his hordesmen, who had already begun to clamber up the sides of the vessel, barking whinnying sounds in his native tongue (if such it could be denominated; perhaps palate or glottis would be better), breaking into the common vernacular in another moment.

“No rob sip!” he yelled. “All-same ally sip. Sit!”

One of the hordesmen commencing to contend this diplomatic decision, the King of Hun Horde Number Seventeen at once whirled his flail and brought it down with a thunk upon the man’s skull. The man scowled sullenly, slowly withdrew, ignoring the blood streaming down onto his seamed face, whereon any number of scars and scabs testified to past recalcitrancies. A mutter began among the horsemen, to whom the niceties of the laws of nations perhaps meant less than to others. Appledore at this point stepped forward, suddenly reassuming, for the first time since having left Sapodilla, his role as a capella bard.

I sing the curses of civilized men [he sang] Upon the accursed Hordes of Huns, most Vile and most vicious of vermin: Woe!

The most vile and most vicious of vermin broke off their muttering, and looked at the bard from their tiny and blood-shot eyes, whilst small and appreciative twitches began to play around the corners of their flat mouths.

Dreading to declare how they burned The basilicas, I lift up my voice to Mourn the moment they impaled priests And benightedly buggered the bishops: Woe!

The hordesmen simpered, looking around from under their scanty eyelashes. The dirty toes of Attila IV

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