‘You would be dead, my friend,’ said Zohon, ‘before you could set an arrow to your bow.’
Barzan drew a long breath, to control a rising wave of irritation.
‘Exactly who, Commander, do you expect to attack you, here, in your own country, surrounded by your own men?’
‘That is the difference between you and me, my friend. You do not believe there will be an attack until it happens. Then you believe it. But then you are dead. I believe the attack will come before it comes. I believe it before there is any threat of an attack. I believe it most of all when there is no reason whatsoever for an attack. That is why I am still alive.’
‘Yes, but so am I.’
‘Ah, my friend. Be very careful.’ He smiled, and gestured to his batman to come forward with the water bucket. Taking it from him in one hand, he emptied it over his own head, splashing the Grand Vizier in the process. His batman then handed him a rough towel, and he rubbed himself down.
Barzan brushed water droplets off his gold robe with impatience.
‘I understand you wished to speak to me, Commander. I’m extremely busy.’
‘Too busy to ensure the safety of the Johanna? I think not.’
‘The Johanna is perfectly safe.’
‘Now, yes. But then?’
‘When? What are you talking about?’
‘This city,’ said Zohon with maddening calm, ‘this famous Mastery’s famous High Domain. I am told it has only the one entrance.’
‘What of it?’
‘What else has only one entrance?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘A trap!’ said Zohon. ‘Once we are lured into this city with only one entrance, they have only to close the gates, and we are trapped!’
The Grand Vizier passed a hand across his brow.
‘Why should anyone want to trap us?’
‘To force the Johanna to hand over all his power.’
‘Commander, the Johanna is giving his only daughter in marriage to the only son of the ruler of this city you fear to enter. What possible reason could that ruler have for using force to gain what is being freely given?’
‘To the true ruler,’ said Zohon, drawing on the jacket of his magnificent uniform, ‘the use of force is an end in itself. I insist that if the royal party enters this city that has no exit, the Johjan Guards accompany the Johanna at full strength.’
‘At full strength! Three thousand armed men at a wedding! Impossible!’
Dressed now, glorious in his gold-encrusted purple tunic, Zohon held out his hand and his batman gave him his silver hammer. The Grand Vizier eyed it with open disgust.
‘I will not insult our host with such an offensive suggestion,’ he said.
Zohon swung his hammer back and forth.
‘I consider it my duty to alert the Johanna to the danger.’
‘By all means do so, Commander. I for my part mean to alert the Johanna to the danger of allowing a large force of halfwitted louts to trample over our host’s exquisitely beautiful city.’
He turned and strode away. Zohon watched him go with a smile.
‘We shall see, my friend,’ he murmured to himself. ‘We shall see.’
Kestrel now stepped out from the concealment of the horses and let the sentries discover her.
‘You! Halt! Stay where you are!’
She did as she was told. Zohon, hearing the sentry’s cry, turned and saw her. He beckoned to the sentry, indicating that he was to bring her to him.
‘Dismiss the men,’ he instructed his officers.
The lines of men, who had been standing rigid and motionless all this time, now broke up, and crowded round the mess tables, eager for their belated lunch. Zohon stood gazing into the distance, speaking to Kestrel without looking at her.
‘What do you want?’
‘You said you would help me,’ replied Kestrel.
‘Why do you want my help?’
‘I’m alone. I have no one to protect me.’
Zohon nodded, still without looking at her.
‘Do as I ask,’ he said, ‘and you will come under the protection of the Hammer of Gang!’
He struck a nearby tree-trunk with his silver hammer.
‘I don’t speak of this –’ he held out the hammer, ‘but of myself. I am known as the Hammer of Gang. Under my protection, no one will dare to harm you.’
‘Thank you,’ said Kestrel.
‘But if I am to help you, you must help me.’
He turned and fixed her with his stern eyes.
‘I believe this marriage to be a mistake. Worse, a disaster. Why is the Johdila to be married to a man she has never met? Who is this man? Some undersized pygmy with a fat belly and black teeth? Some ancient wreck with no hair and a squint? He could be. We know nothing about him. Is the loveliest, the sweetest, the most perfect creature in all the world to be sold to this monster because her father hasn’t the guts to stand up to a petty dictator?’
The Commander was almost shouting. Aware that he was making too much noise, he calmed himself down, and went on in a fierce whisper,
‘She should marry one of her own kind. She should marry a strong and healthy young man who is respected by her people, and who is powerful enough to protect her. Doesn’t she deserve this, and more? Is she not the most beautiful young woman in all the world?’
This question seemed to require an answer.
‘She is very lovely,’ said Kestrel.
‘Ah!’ Zohon sighed, and a faraway look came into his face. ‘I know it in my heart! I’ve never seen her face, but her loveliness – how can I explain? – her loveliness calls out to me.’
As he spoke of the Johdila’s loveliness he thought also of his own handsome looks. The two images were linked in his mind.
‘At home,’ he said, ‘there’s a secluded woodland pool, where I go to swim. After I’ve swum, I stand by the bank and let the water run off my body, and wait for the surface of the pool to be still. Then I look down, and see my reflection.’
He fell silent, contemplating the memory of his own manly form. Then he turned to Kestrel.
‘How do I look to you? Short? Tall? Plain? Handsome? Be honest.’
‘Tall,’ said Kestrel. ‘Handsome.’
‘I’m not asking for compliments, you understand. I want facts. Simple undeniable facts. I believe I am considered a fine figure of a man. I’m twenty-nine years of age. I’m Commander of the Johjan Guards. These are facts. Would you not say, when you consider these facts, that I am a suitable consort for the Johdila?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Has she said as much to you?’
‘No.’
‘But she might. Were you to ask her. Were you to lead the talk round to the subject of marriage, and husbands, and how it might have been better managed, and who might be a better choice, and young men of her acquaintance. You follow me?’
‘Yes,’ said Kestrel. ‘You want to know if she’d rather marry you.’
‘Hush!’ Zohon was a little shocked to hear it put so plainly. ‘Some things are better understood in silence. These are dangerous matters.’
‘But it’s too late, surely.’
‘We shall see about that.’ He walked moodily up and down, swinging his hammer. ‘First, I need to know her heart. That is where you must help me.’
‘What am I to do?’ Kestrel knew very well, but it suited her to have Zohon think he was the one with the plan.
‘Speak to her. Find out if she fears this marriage. Speak of me. Then come to me and tell me what she says.’
Horns sounded from the lead end of the caravan. Soon now the carriages would be moving off.
‘Go now. Keep my secret. If you betray me –’ he raised his hammer, and reversing it, lopped off a cluster of leaves from a low-hanging branch, ‘I will show no mercy.’
As the leaves fluttered to the ground, Zohon’s ever-alert eyes caught a movement on the far side of the trees. It was Ozoh, the royal augur, hurrying to his carri
age, his gaze firmly fixed on the ground.
‘And don’t trust the snake man,’ he added.
Ozoh the Wise was worried. He made it his business to notice what went on around him, even the little unimportant things, and he had noticed that the Johdila’s new servant had some unexplained dealings with Zohon.
He decided he had better share his suspicions with Barzan. The Grand Vizier, his friend and patron, had promised him an estate in the hills by the southern lakes, with its own vineyard, once the royal marriage was successfully concluded.
‘I’ve just seen the Commander –’
‘That scheming squirt of squirrel droppings!’
‘He seems to be making friends with the Johdila’s new servant.’
‘I should have started a war somewhere, to get him out of the way.’
‘I wondered if you’d noticed.’
‘Of course I’ve noticed,’ said Barzan, not wanting to appear unobservant. ‘What of it?’
‘I just wondered what they might have to talk about.’
‘Ozoh,’ sighed the Grand Vizier, ‘Zohon is a virile young man. This servant is in her way an attractive young woman. Need I go on?’
‘Ah. So you think it’s that.’
‘It usually is.’
‘So you think there’s nothing to worry about?’
‘Quite the contrary. If Zohon has his eye on the girl, so much the better. He’s far too keen on playing with his toy soldiers. There’s nothing like a woman to take a man’s mind off soldiering.’
Ozoh the Wise returned thoughtfully to his own carriage. The sacred chicken clucked at him from its cage. Ozoh opened the cage door and took the chicken onto his lap, and sat stroking its white feathers as he pondered the situation.
‘What am I to do, my dove?’ he murmured. ‘What am I to do, my silky one?’
The chicken scratched at his baggy pantaloons and cooed contentedly.
The immense caravan rolled across the land in a northeasterly direction, through the subject kingdoms and on into the border territories. From the first outriders of the Johjan Guards to the last baggage wagons, the column took over an hour to pass by. The peasants and traders in the path of the royal progress took care to prostrate themselves on the ground as the caravan went by, and press their faces to the dust. Many closed their eyes and went to sleep, as the thousands of marching boots and hundreds of rumbling wheels ground slowly past. It was safer to go to sleep than to risk a peek at the magnificent carriages, in case the fabled Johdila was looking out of a carriage window. The simple peasant folk believed that one glance from her radiant eyes was a preview of paradise, but they also believed that one glance would cause their own eyes to catch fire and melt. Wise in their fashion, they chose to sleep in the dust, and let paradise go by.
7
Into the Mastery
Marius Semeon Ortiz and his long lines of captives reached the borders of the Mastery on the twenty-fifth day, just as he had planned. There was no wall surrounding this country of slaves: only a pair of stubby stone markers, on either side of the road. The true indicator that they had passed into a new realm lay in the countryside around them. Hanno Hath and his family saw it with astonishment: on one side of the stone markers, a bare windswept land, where only the hardiest of plants, gorse and heather and thorn, clung to the stony ground; on the other side, tilled fields, many still tawny with the stubble of a late harvest, divided by hedges, and criss-crossed by deep-ditched watercourses. Here and there, groups of farm workers could be seen driving teams of plough horses, or digging potatoes. They paused in their work as the march went by, and gaped in their turn in surprise. Ortiz, his body aching from the long days in the saddle, noted this with satisfaction. No one had ever brought back so many slaves, in such fine condition, in a single raid.
He beckoned one of his chasseurs to his side.
‘Ride on,’ he said. ‘Present my compliments to the Master. Tell him I bring him the Manth people to kneel at his feet.’
His captives looked around them as they marched, their weary spirits rising with the news that the end was in sight. The more they saw of this new country, the more they marvelled. The road down which they passed was now paved in smooth cut stone. Where it met a ditch or stream, a new well-built stone bridge carried it onward without interruption. On either side they saw farm buildings with steep roofs that hung almost to the ground: large handsome houses made of timber and clay, with well-swept sandy yards, set among pastures stocked with plump cattle. Smoke rose from tall chimneys. Children’s voices could be heard chanting their lessons from a many-windowed schoolhouse. A jaunting wagon passed them on the road, carrying a crowd of young people sitting back to back, who were shouting out and laughing as they went. There were no prisons to be seen, no bars, no chains, no guards. Wherever the slaves were kept, it was not here.
Bowman strode along steadily beside his father, on the outer edge of the column of slaves. To his right marched a stout round-faced soldier, one of the lower ranks, for whom the long trek from Aramanth had been almost as arduous as for the captives. His name was Joll, and he was a Loomus, from the coastal region of Loom. The Loomus were mostly fishermen, a slow-moving slow-thinking race, not much given to talking. Bowman had made friends with Joll in the last few days, and he now turned to him with a question.
‘All these people. Where are they going?’
The further up the road they marched, the more it became apparent that others were heading in the same direction. From fields and paths they came, in an ever-growing stream, to make their way up the rising land towards the band of trees on the near horizon.
‘To the manaxa,’ replied Joll. And pointing with his chin towards the mounted figure of Ortiz ahead, he added, ‘He’s clever, that one. He’s bringing in his prizes on the day of the manaxa.’
‘What’s the manaxa?’
‘The manaxa? Well now, it’s like nothing in the world excepting itself. How would you speak of the manaxa, Tell?’
Tell was another Loomus guard, marching immediately in front of Joll.
‘The manaxa?’ said Tell. ‘I would speak of it as a kind of dancing.’
‘And a kind of killing,’ said Joll.
‘It’s not every day you get a killing,’ said Tell. ‘You don’t want to raise the lad’s hopes.’
‘True enough, true enough. As often as not the loser takes the jump.’
‘You get a killing,’ Tell explained to Bowman, ‘when the fighters are evenly matched, and neither one will give up. That’s quite something, I don’t mind telling you. That really oils your britches.’
‘Are they forced to fight each other?’ asked Bowman.
‘Forced? Why would they be forced? It’s an honour to be a manac. An honour and a glory. Am I right, Joll?’
‘You are, Tell. An honour and a glory. And then there’s the doing of it, you know. The manaxa is what I’d call very dangerous, but very beautiful. Am I right, Tell?’
‘You are, Joll. Dangerously beautiful. That’s it, in two words.’
They had now reached the trees, and for a little while they marched in tree-shadow. The long days of walking had worn down the Manth people, and there was little spirit of resistance left in them. Even Ira Hath had become quiet. Her blisters had passed from raw wounds to calluses, and as her feet had hardened, the pain had faded. Ortiz had been careful not to force the march for too many hours at a time, and with careful rationing the food supplies had lasted. All in all, he had judged it well. The slaves were in need of good food and rest, but they were not broken. Knowing that they would not reach the marshalling yards until later that evening, he ordered the last of the supplies to be distributed as soon as he gave the command for the march to stop.
The Hath family stayed close together, as they had done all through the march. Ira Hath and Pinto followed immediately behind Hanno and Bowman. Mumpo, whose turn it was to carry Mrs Chirish, lagged some way back. As they passed through the trees there was little to see, so each of them
turned to whatever thoughts were uppermost in their minds. Hanno was worrying about whether they would be split up on their arrival. Ira was remembering the kitchen of their old house in Orange District where Pinto had been a baby, and how Bowman had rolled her back and forth on the floor and made her laugh. Bowman was missing Kestrel. And Pinto, slogging determinedly along on her much shorter legs, was day-dreaming about a heroic act in which she rescued them all from their enemies. She was not clear about the exact way she would do it, and so had moved on, in her imagining, to the part where everyone cheered, and said how wonderful it was that they owed their freedom to a child of seven.
So all of them were caught entirely by surprise when they marched out of the trees and saw the view before them. The Mastery lay in a wide shallow valley that bordered an immense lake: and everything about it was beautiful.
The road wound down through green fields, past farms and villages and great estates, to the shores of the lake. A causeway reached out from the shore, carried on timber piles for half a mile or more to an island, where there rose a walled palace, or city, that seemed to be built out of light and colour alone. There were buildings, they jostled close one against the next, but their thousand roofs seemed to float, each one sustained by a weightless shimmering umbrella. The late afternoon sun was falling aslant into the city, and the domed roofs, seeming to drink it, were gorged with light, and flushed rose-pink, emerald-green, blood-red.
All round the city ran walls of creamy stone, walls that rose up directly from the waters of the lake, and went on rising for thirty feet or more. Yet even this massive edifice was so constructed that it seemed light: the upper stonework, becoming thinner as it rose, was pierced with intricately-patterned holes, so that from this distance the great walls seemed no more substantial than a curtain of amber lace.
Marius Semeon Ortiz saw the wonder on the faces of the slaves, and felt again, as he always did on returning to the Mastery, a renewal of awe and gratitude to the Master.