Anderson, Poul - Novel 18 Read online

  Suddenly Sidfr thought: If Yurussun came for a look, and saw this she-puma out of the past that has crumbled from him—aye, no wonder he was shaken.

  He himself had barely met her last night, disheveled, filth-smeared, dazed from blows. It would have been useless to interrogate her. Besides, he had at once guessed she might be opportunity for him. He ordered her given treatment and proper quarters, then went back to see how his officers were doing with the servants and the Knife Brothers taken earlier.

  Now, when he felt the life radiating from her—

  He curbed himself. “Greeting, my lady,” he said, and gave his name and rank. “They tell me you hight Donya of Hervar.”

  She nodded.

  “Are you satisfied here?” he persisted. “Do you have what you want?” He smiled. “Other than your freedom?”

  Her amusement startled him. “Fairly spoken,” she chuckled.

  “Freedom should soon be yours again, my lady, if—”

  She lifted a palm. “Stop. Spoil it not by honeymouthing. Yes, I would like a few things more. This is a wearisome place, save for what I can watch of town and birds. Send me playthings.”

  “Ai—what?”

  “If you dare trust me with graving tools, I can ornament a saddle for you. I play the tano and—well, if you have none of our in—instruments, let me try if I can teach myself one of yours. I don’t suppose you have Rogaviki books, but I might puzzle my way through Arvannethan, if somebody will explain what the letters stand for.”

  “They have books in Rogaviki an?” he asked, hardly believing.

  “Yes. Now, for a starter, Sidir of Rahfd, you can sit down and talk.” Donya curled her limbs on a couch.

  He took a chair. “I came for that,” he said. “Do understand, I am sorry about the rough handling you got. But there you were, guest of a criminal chieftain, companion of a foreign spy. You resisted arrest, and I think two men of mine will carry the marks you left to their graves.”

  “I almost got an eyeball out of another,” said Donya, whether genially or wistfully he couldn’t be sure.

  “You see you left us no choice,” he argued. “I hope you will give it today.”

  “How? I can tell you little more about Josserek than you must already have learned. Hyaah, he is not bad company on an outing. Else ... he never told me he was anything but a sailor in trouble. He might have later, if you had been less hasty.”

  “Would you then have told me?”

  “No,” she said, matter-of-fact. “You are my enemy.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Will you not soon invade my land?”

  “Maybe. That metal is hot, but not yet in the mold. This is why I’m anxious to talk with Rogaviki leaders. You are the first I’ve found, Donya.”

  “I am no leader. We have none, the way you mean.”

  “Still, we can parley, can’t we? Like honorable enemies, if nothing better.”

  She grimaced. “There are no honorable enemies.”

  “Oh, wait. Opponents can have regard for each other, wish they need not fight, but since they must, abide by decent rules.”

  “If you do not wish to fight us, stay home,” she said coolly. “Isn’t that quite simple?”

  “The Empire has necessities which drive it. But it can give you far more than ever it takes: security, trade, culture, knowledge, progress, the whole world open to you.”

  “I have seen tame cattle. Many of them live fat lives too.”

  Piqued, Sidfr snapped, “I am no steer.”

  “N-no.” She regarded him speculatively, her lids half lowered and a finger across her chin. “I didn’t mean you are. I keep hounds.”

  “And I keep you! ... That was ill put. I’m sorry. Let me try afresh. What I want from you goes far past anything you know about Casiru or the Killimaraichan. I want to learn about your people, their country, ways, wishes, dreams—How else can I deal with them as human beings? And deal I must, whatever shape that takes. You can help me start learning, Donya.”

  “You will not let me go, then?”

  “In due course, I will. Meanwhile ... you came to study us, right? I can teach you, so later you can deal more wisely too. Meanwhile, I promise fair treatment.”

  She lounged for a space, easy and watchful, until she laughed, well down in her throat. “Yes, why not? If you will keep people from crowding in on me, in flesh and word—let me out of here, even though under guard—”

  “Certainly. Would you like to come hunting with me soon?”

  “Yes. Very much. Also ... I have been too surrounded for a long while, Sidfr. It set me so on edge that I spent all my nights alone. This tower, clean sky everywhere around, is nearly like a hilltop far from any house. Already I feel happier, prison though it be. And you and your Barommians feel more like my kind than do men of Rahfd or Arvanneth. Will you tell me sometime about your homeland?”

  She sat straight and lifted an arm toward him, gesture of command. “You are in truth a hunter’s hound. Come over here.”

  He did no more work that day or night.

  CHAPTER 7

  During the month which followed, the last blossoms fell and the last leaves budded out. Word came from northward: the Jugular River was ice-free and roads along its banks dry enough to bear heavy-laden wheels. Meanwhile his reinforcements and supplies reached Sidir. On Kingsday, the seventh of Dou, Year 83 of the Thirty-First Renewal of the Divine Mandate (Imperial calendar) his army set forth.

  Behind stayed very modest garrisons, sufficient to maintain order in the city and its satellite towns, villages, countryside, seacoast. For those who departed outnumbered thirty thousand. Most would not go the whole distance. Sidfr’s plan depended on establishing riparian bases as he went, which in turn would seed strongpoints across the lands. Thus he required abundant material at the beginning. Mule trains crowded tradeways. Sidewheeler tugs churned water white; strings of barges wallowed behind them. In their lead, screw-driven, stately, gilt-laced over pearl-gray hull and superstructure, moved Weyrin, Rahfdian-built on a Killimaraichan model, transport and office space for the leaders of the host.

  This expedition isn’t quite like in old days, when Barommian riders whooped merrily down to sack and bum, Josserek had thought after he boarded. From what I hear of him, Sidir can’t wait to found his last fortress and lead his crack cavalry off on summer’s last grand foray.

  What he heard had been almost entirely indirect, from Casiru. He saw hardly anybody else while he lay hidden. The Brotherhood vicechief knew ample ratroutes around the city; when he surfaced, he was inconspicuous, a withered native in shabby garments. Josserek was sure to be stopped for questioning, did an Imperial see him before the search died down in favor of preparations for war. Casiru gave him a room with screened balcony in a house near Treasure Notch which he owned through a dummy. None save the master himself and a taciturn manservant who tended Josserek’s needs had keys to it. The needs were admitted to include books and exercise equipment, but not a woman. Except for his and Casiru’s conversations, that was a dismal month.

  Danger? jubilated in him when he felt streets, wharf, gangplank, deck beneath his feet. Getting out is worth every last drop I may sweat. And if that isn’t common sense, then Shark devour common sense!

  “Name and post,” demanded the Rahfdian boatswain as he trod onto Weyrin.

  “Seyk Ammar, sir,” he answered. “Stoker.”

  The boatswain peered from him to the register and back again. “Where are you from?”

  “Thunwa, sir. Uh, the man they signed on for this post, Lejunun, his name is, he fell sick. Happened I was staying at the same inn. I went to Anchor Hall and put in for the job.” In fact, Casiru had handled everything, a bribe to the coal heaver, a blackmail hold on a certain member of the Workbrokers’ Guild.

  “Aye, here’s a scribble about it.” The boatswain considered him further. Josserek could remove earrings, trim hair, grow a short beard, tuck a rough Rahfdian- style robe above his knees, shoulder
a sea bag. He could not change his accent, or the blend of races that made him. “Thunwa, hai? Don’t they stay home all their lives?”

  “Mainly they do, sir. I ran off when I was a boy.” To claim he was bom in the Empire’s northwestern province, whose mountaineers were unknown along the Dolphin Gulf, had seemed his best bet.

  The boatswain shrugged. Others awaited his attention. They were a mixed lot; Imperial citizens had bred fewer sailors than Imperial commerce nowadays demanded. “I see. You can’t read or write, can you? Well, they’ll have explained our rules at the Hall. Wartime rules, remember. Ink your thumb on this pad. Make your mark here. Get on below, second deck aft, and report to the engineer’s mate.”

  Josserek preferred sail to steam, and aboard power-craft he had always worked topside. The black hole proved hotter, fouler-smelling, dirtier, and noisier, the labor more dull and exhausting, then he had imagined. But on Sidfr’s own vessel, nobody who counted would give a stoker a second glance, as long as he behaved himself.

  Off duty, Josserek explored, perfectly natural for a new hand provided he kept out of officer country. Several times he spied Donya from afar. His chance to get closer didn’t come till four days out.

  He had scrubbed away soot and coal dust, donned a clean garment, and climbed in search of a breath before his watch ate. Few people were about, none at that part of the main deck where he emerged. Behind him rose the poop, shelter for galley, carpenter shop, and other service cabins. Ahead lifted a three-tiered deckhouse. Its upper front was the bridge, and its top sprouted the stack; but rails and awnings made the flat roofs beneath into galleries for those privileged to bunk there. Josserek sought the starboard bulwark, between two of the small brass guns the boat carried. He leaned outward and inhaled.

  The hull throbbed underfoot. A breeze carried smoke away and brought in odors of dampness, silt, reedy growth, wet soil beyond. Though the sun stood at noon, edging with brilliance tall cumulus clouds in the west, that air was cool. Here and there, caught on a snag or sandbar, a last drift of slush melted away in great brown currents. For fear of those obstacles, the fleet kept near mid-channel, and Josserek surveyed widely overstream to shore. He spied fish, herons, dragonflies, early mosquitoes, treetrunks from springtime floods. Banks slanted high and steep, cattails thick at their feet, brush and willow above. Beyond them, the land was no longer flat but starting to rise and roll, intensely emerald green, wildflowers, shrubs, scattered pine and oak groves, no sign of habitation except, afar, a ruined castle. This was not yet Rogaviki territory. Arvanneth had once held and still claimed it; but civil war, then pestilence had anciently gone through here, ambition and strength to resettle had never afterward arisen, the city-state was content with the nominal homage of a few tribes who drifted in from the Wilderwoods. Nonetheless, forest did not flourish. Already this short way north of Gulf, climate felt a breath off the Ice.

  A longer way for a march, Josserek reflected. I daresay the Barommians fume at the pace. But it’s incredible what speed Sidir is getting out of infantry, artillery, engineers, quartermasters. I didn’t believe his public estimate of twenty days to Fuld. Now I do.

  To check on such things was one reason he had signed himself aboard. He wasn’t the sole intelligence collector for the Seafolk, of course. But they were terribly short on data about how formidable the revived Empire was, especially on land. Each bit mattered.

  Josserek’s vision sought the troops. At their distance they were a mass that rolled above the riverbanks and across the plain like a slow tsunami. He heard wagons rumble and groan, boots thud, hoofs clash, and the drums, bah-DAH-dah-dah, bah-DAH-dah-rah, bah- DAH-dah-dah-dah-dah-RRRRP. Banners and pikeheads rippled aloft, as a prairie ripples to the wind. He made out single horsemen in the van or on the flanks, steel agleam, cloaks flying in rainbow hues when they unleashed the full pace of their beasts. Sometimes a rider blew a horn signal. Its wolf-bay laughed through the drums.

  He turned from the view, and saw Donya.

  She had come around the upper gallery on the deckhouse, to pause at its after rail and herself gaze remotely. A blue Rahfdian robe fell from neck to ankles. Had Sidfr decided he didn’t want his mistress in revealing Arvannethan raiment? Josserek gauged she had lost weight, and her face was empty of expression; but health and pride dwelt there yet.

  His heart sprang. Careful, careful. On the lower promenade a Barommian officer puffed a pipe. He appeared to young to have been in the former campaign against the Rogaviki. The odds were therefore excellent that he wouldn’t recognize that tongue. Be careful anyhow. With casualness he hoped wasn’t overdone,

  ' Josserek sauntered from the bulwark while he broke into song, quiet though carrying as high as he wanted. The melody was from Eoa, the words his ... Northfolk words.

  “Woman, you have a friend. Stand easy; listen in silence.”

  Had the Barommian understood and inquired, Josserek would have explained he’d learned it from a tavern companion who’d been in the upriver trade. He had composed several additional lines which made the whole thing a banal love lyric. But the fellow gave him an incurious glance and went back to his smoke.

  Donya’s fingers, clutched the rail. Otherwise she merely watched the stroller, as anybody might. He caroled:

  “Remember me, he from the Glimmerwater. We were last together the day they captured you. Can you meet me?” She gave a nod too slight to notice unless a man was alert for it. “At the front and bottom of this boat is a storage chamber." Her language had no means he knew of for saying “forward hold.” He flipped her a wink. "Inside the housing over the bows, where I sneaked from below for a forbidden moment, is a bath that must be for your class. Can you go in there alone, unsuspected?” A nod again. “A ladder beside the bath compartment leads down, past a space where they keep ropes, to the section I mean. It should be a safe meeting spot. I work at the engine. These are the times I am free.” He named hours, struck by the main gong. "Which is best for you?” He repeated them. She signed him that this evening suited. “Wonderful! If you cannot come, or I, we will try tomorrow, agreed? Fare you well. ”

  He drifted off, because his food must be ready and a stoker who missed a meal was preposterous. He scarcely noticed the tired cabbage and fatback. Though he had to fake the customary siesta, he bounced from his hammock and flew through his second watch. Afterward, the stew that was slopped slimily into his bowl tasted good.

  Since the army made camp by daylight, the fleet stopped too. Sunset trickled through the ventilation lattices when Josserek hurried off. Tarry odors from the anchor rode locker followed him down to his destination. Walking, he didn’t worry about being seen. An engineer could well send a man for something from the miscellaneous stores there. Besides, the chance of such an errand out of any department, at any given time, was slight. But Josserek’s heart knocked while he waited in the gloom. When Donya appeared, he jumped to take her hand and guide her behind a concealing pile of crates.

  “Eyach, you bearslayer!” She was a wan shadow in his eyes, heat and firmness in his arms, hunger on his mouth. He thought fleetingly he tasted tears, but couldn’t be sure, nor quite sure whose they might be.

  At last she drew back and whispered: “We mustn’t stay long. Why are you here? How?”

  “How have you been?” he responded.

  “I—” He couldn’t follow the rest, and told her.

  “Best we speak Arvannethan, then,” she agreed, calmer now. “Mine has improved. Sidfr and I use it together for practice, save when I instruct him in Rogavikian. He’s had little time for that. Yours is not bad. Where did you study it?”

  “You first, I said,” he insisted. “What happened? How are you treated?”

  “Kindly, by Sidfr’s lights. He’s never forced or threatened me, he gives me what freedom he dares, offers me luxuries, is at my side every chance he can make. And a fair lover. I like him, really. I’m sorry that soon I will hate him.”

  “Why have you stayed? Couldn’t you slip off?”


  “Yes. Easiest from this vessel, over the side after dark and swim ashore. Hardly a Barommian or Rahfdian alive can swim. But I wanted to learn about his forces, his plans. And I have learned, a great deal. I still am learning. That will help us much, I think.” Her nails bit his arm. “Your turn! You’re an agent from Killimaraich, no? Isn’t that why you gained some Rogavikian speech?”

  “True. Three or four years ago, before the attack on Arvanneth, we grew convinced it would come, and this march up the Jugular eventually follow. We had spies in Rahfd, you see. My service recruited a language instructor, a man of the Metallists who’d passed his career among Northfolk, traveling as well as trading.”

  (Josserek omitted the linguistic and anthropological analysis which made his education less garbled than would otherwise have been the case, as well as the psychological techniques which drove it quickly and firmly into his head. Later, maybe, if they both escaped.

  (Besides—hard to imagine when this woman stood warm and breathing against him—the degarbling had largely amounted to sifting out what the Guildsman really knew from what he thought he knew. A whole net of assumptions about the Rogaviki underlay his interpretations of every idiom, every construction. Different

  lines of evidence, scanty though they were, showed those assumptions were not necessarily true, and many of them demonstrably false. The fact was, he taught Josserek a pidgin, fluent, reasonably grammatical, nevertheless a pidgin which left out the most basic concepts.

  (It was like being a native of a backward island, who had glimpsed Killmaraichan ships, engines, clocks, sextants, telescopes, compasses, guns, but had only a single word—“windmill,” say—for every compound machine, and had never dreamed of mechanics, thermodynamics, or chemistry, let alone free market economics or the evolution of life through geological time.

  (Josserek couldn’t guess how alien Donya might be to him. Could she?)

  “What is your mission?” she asked.

  “To observe whatever I can,” he said. “Especially about your people, and the possibility of allying against the Empire. Not that it’s an immediate menace to the Seafolk. We don’t want a war. But if, in some skimpy way, we, I can help you—” He clasped her tighter. “I’d be overjoyed my own self.”