Chapter XXXV
Wessex peered through one of the narrow slots that served as windows.
“Lo, is it not enough that giants attack us? Must we now swat at Koinoni?”
He drifted away from the window, his tall hat, with flat top and no brim, brushing against the ceiling. So used to constantly rubbing shoulders with dozens of other Raspars, he took little care for the crowd around him. “Aye, watch yourself!” he snapped distractedly at one or many as he squeezed past.
Wessex sucked at his teeth as he paced and thought. As regent to the Raspar city, he had never before seen an attack on their castle walls. Now he had undergone two within a month. The first, an assault by a mob of inhuman beings, left one wall badly damaged. For days now he had puzzled at how to go about making repairs, for no Raspar knew how the stones stuck together. Now this second group of attackers, seeming more like minstrels than anything else, added to his irritation. They came a tiny group, and a puzzling mix like none he’d ever seen. But among them stood Koinoni, a portent Wessex knew to distrust, and a lone man seen before, spying on the Eternal City.
He towered over his people, tall as a rule, and his hat only exaggerated his height. A sculptor who had contributed many of the carvings upon the sides of the walls, Wessex had strong shoulders and a broad chest. Tough calluses covered his hands, which may have been the reason he constantly rubbed them together. A heavy brow topped his face, always appearing to have a frown; age had left him deeply wrinkled, with large ears and shaggy eyebrows. He walked with a limp, the nagging result of an injury to his hip years ago, when he had fallen from a wall, impaled upon a wooden spike. Like all Raspar men, he carried a belt ripe with tools about his waist always.
Wessex was a hard man among a hard people, skeptical about anything that did not play to his worst nature. His voice normally remained calm, also typical of his clan, but when his temper broke he spoke at nearly a falsetto pitch. The Raspars’ long years in close quarters left them always on the verge of a flashpoint, but always just calming down an outburst. Anger flared easily, and faded just so.
The Raspar men grew only the lightest of beards and appeared clean shaven, and the women wore their long blonde hair in a singled braid down the back. The people’s enclosed life had left them pale, frightened and hateful. They mistrusted anyone outside the city walls, and indeed had no knowledge of most of the peoples of Medialia. They never left their prison walls, just as Theodoric had said, except to glean wild grains and fruits from the wretched fields they watched over. Deep tunnels ran beneath the city, leading out to the world through secret openings; delicate artwork lined the walls of the passageways. Not even a single doorway opened into the immense city; the only entrance a stranger could make would be through a window by way of ladder. Artists and architects, the Raspars crept behind the confines of their walls, brilliant at their work, destitute in their hearts.
“Lo, do they remain outside the walls?” Wessex asked.
“Aye, and they look like they wish to attack,” said a bent-over man looking timidly over the edge of the window.
“Aye, after a lifetime of false alarms, Hadrian, ye might have given us a call when they first arrived,” Wessex yelled in an increasingly high voice.
“Nay, but I tended the water high upon the roofs.”
Hadrian served as officer in charge of water, gathered in reservoirs on the city roofs, dew caught dripping from the leaves of the soaring trees. His years of work — tending the reservoirs, trying to stay hidden behind the balustrades, scanning the horizons for any sign of trouble — left him with his stooped posture. Of all the Raspars, fear struck his heart most coldly, and so made him the best lookout.
“Lo, but at least I did warn ye of the giants. That ye must say,” he defended himself.
“Aye,” said Wessex.
“Nay, the outsiders plot in the forest,” said another, whose name was Vespus. “No doubt they are in league with the giants. They’ve come for their plunder.”
“Aye, and we have precious few more arrows to spare,” said Wessex.
“Aye, we must wipe them out! Slaughter them all!” growled Vespus.
“Nay, but we must be careful with our weapons. The giants have already raided us. We must not fire away all our arrows.”
“Aye, we must wipe them out.”
Vespus peered out with his only eye; nobody knew what had happened to the other, for he never spoke of it, and a ragged patch covered its former home. It may have had something to do with his height, for he was unusually short — only about the size of a Raspar woman — and he had run into a lifetime of grief on account of it. His temper ran particularly hot, and he carried a crude broadsword about with him, which he really had no use for except to bang on tables. He made no exception now.
“Aye, wipe them out.”
“Lo, and how shall we go about it?” asked Wessex, his voice rising. “Will ye be going out after them with your blade? It is as dull as ye, I expect.”
“Nay, but well-placed arrows, that’s all that’s needed.”
“Lo, keep an eye on them for now. We’ll have our chance much sooner than they.”
Wessex paced away from the windows, down the long hallways, deeper into the castle towers, brushing past all others. Dim beeswax candles lit the towers’ interior. Wessex kept his hands behind his back as he walked, sucking incessantly on his teeth, and remained oblivious to what would have struck any visitor as obvious, that twice as many adults as children lived in the city. Oddly, he sought just that.
“Lo, have the giants come again, Father?” asked the young woman, sitting on a low bed and brushing her hair. Like all Raspar women, she was tall, and her breasts proud and hips thin. Her long legs carried her about delicately, thin arms swaying gracefully. Much lust within her clan fell her way, and she did not hesitate to use it to her advantage. All around her lay at least a dozen other Raspar maidens.
“Nay, Mercedi, a different group lurks by the south wall. Outsiders — men like I have never seen before, and Koinoni.”
“Nay. Koinoni?”
“Aye. And others, men colored red all over, and some who look gray. Then one other great fat fellow with hair black as charcoal. He appears to have a woman with him.”
“Lo, Father, what do they want?”
“Aye, Mercedi, that we must answer — they will attack, no doubt. They have never come to Raspar lands before, but one of them; they must seek something, having traveled all this way. But the city walls will protect us. It is our first law.” He absent-mindedly fingered the collection of tools about his waist.
“Lo, Father, may I see them?”
“Nay, be content to stay away from the windows for now. When they come upon the city, we may have need of ye to fight; ye will see them well then.”
“Aye, Father. Are ye sure they mean us ill?”
“Aye. Why else would they be here?”
“Lo, Father, I do not know.”
“Nay, neither do I. But I do know the bile within all men, and they would take our lives from us as easily as they breathe. We must protect ourselves, and our Eternal City.”
“Lo, Father, what do they now?”
“Lo, they await the morning in the wood. We have repulsed them once — perhaps they will leave at daylight. Goodnight, daughter; perhaps the morning will bring better news.”
“Aye. Goodnight, Father.”
Wessex exited the room and continued his thoughtful walk. Raspar regents had come and gone, and the clan’s security within the stone walls had never before been challenged. He could not be the first Raspar leader to lose clansmen to their enemies; the shame would be unbearable. And how could this tiny band of men presume to threaten the city anyway? But why else might they have come? Possibly to help the giants, who had laid siege to the city just weeks ago. Did they plan another attack, perhaps taking stock of the damage done, perhaps directing the giants’ next assault? And what of the damaged wall? How would he fix it? Questions Wessex could not answer
racked his brain; he knew nothing except to agree with Vespus, that all the outsiders must be wiped out.
Mercedi listened to her father’s fading footsteps, then slid out of bed. She tiptoed carefully, her delicate steps cleverly finding even the smallest spaces between the other sleeping women, and made her way opposite to the direction she knew her father had taken. An odd thing about the Raspars: Even though Mercedi passed perhaps a hundred clansmen, they all turned a blind eye to what she did; they had something of a protocol of silence, as though everyone knew the secrets of all others, but would not think of revealing them.
Regardless, she passed through the lower levels until she reached a tower with a window facing the wood to the south. She peered through the window and spotted the tiny campfire of the travelers.
At just the same time but through a different window, Hadrian also looked out and trembled quietly. What he saw shocked him, and he wheeled about and declared in a panicked whisper to Vespus:
“That one just killed a thylak with a toothpick!”