Bessian looked straight ahead, impatient as it seemed, to reach the plain as swiftly as possible.
“Setting up a boundary stone is a solemn act,” he said, still staring into the distance. “I don’t know if we’ll have the good fortune to be present at just such a ceremony. Oh, look. There’s a muranë.
“Where?”
“There, behind that bush, on the right.”
“Oh, yes,” Diana said.
“There’s another.”
“Yes, yes, I see it, and there’s another one further on.”
“Those are the muranës that the innkeeper mentioned,” Bessian said. “They serve as boundary marks between fields or property lines.”
“There’s another,” Diana said.
“That’s what the Kanun says. ‘When a death occurs during a boundary dispute, the grave itself serves as a boundary mark.’ ”
Diana’s head was right against the window-pane.
“The tomb that becomes a boundary mark cannot, according to the Kanun, ever be displaced by any person to the end of time,” Bessian continued. “It is a boundary that has been consecrated by bloodshed and death.”
“How many opportunities to die!” Diana said those words against the window-pane, which promptly steamed over, as if to cut her off from the sight of the landscape.
In front of them the three horsemen were dismounting. The carriage halted a few paces behind. As soon as Bessian and Diana stepped down from the coach, they felt that everyone’s attention was directed at themselves. Assembled all around them were men, women, and many children.
“There are children here, too, do you see?” Bessian said to Diana. “Establishing the boundaries is the only important event in the life of a mountaineer to which the children come, and that is done so as to preserve the memory of it for as long as possible.”
They went on talking to each other, supposing that it would allow them to face the curiosity of the mountain people in the most natural-seeming way. Out of the corner of her eye, Diana looked at the young women, the hems of whose long skirts billowed with their every movement. All of them had their hair dyed black and cut in the same style, with curls on their foreheads and straight hair hanging down on each side of their faces like curtains in the theatre. They looked at the newly arrived couple from a distance, but taking care to conceal their interest.
“Are you cold?” Bessian asked his wife.
“A bit.”
In fact it was quite cold on the high plateau, and the blue tints of the mountains all around seemed to make the air even colder.
“Lucky it’s not raining,” Bessian said.
“Why would it be raining?” she said in surprise. For a moment she thought of the rain as being a poor beggar-woman, out of place in this magnificent alpine winter scene.
In the middle of a pasture, Ali Binak and his assistants were carrying on a discussion with a group of men.
“Let’s go and see. We’re sure to find out something.”
They walked on slowly through the scattered people, hearing whispers—the words themselves, partly because they were mumbled and partly because of the unfamiliar dialect, were almost incomprehensible to them. The only words they did understand were “princess” and “the king’s sister,” and Diana, for the first time that day, wanted to laugh aloud.
“Did you hear?” she said to Bessian. “They take me for a princess.”
Happy to see her a little more cheerful, he pressed her arm.
“Not so tired now?”
“No,” she said. “It’s lovely here.”
Without being aware of it, they had been approaching Ali Binak’s group. They exchanged introductions almost spontaneously because the mountain people seemed to be pushing the two groups of new arrivals together. Bessian told them who he was and where he came from. Ali Binak did the same, to the astonishment of the mountaineers who believed him to be famous throughout the world. As they talked, the crowd of people around them grew, staring at them and especially at Diana.
“The innkeeper told us a little while ago that this plain has known many disputes about boundaries,” Bessian said.
“That is true,” Ali Binak replied. He spoke quietly and in a somewhat monotonous tone, with no hint of passion. No doubt that was required of him because of his work as an interpreter of the Kanun. “I think you must have seen the muranës on either side of the road.”
Bessian and Diana both nodded their heads.
“And after all those deaths the dispute is still not settled?” Diana asked.
Ali Binak looked at her calmly. Compared with the curious looks of the crowd around them and especially the blazing eyes of the man with the checked jacket, who had introduced himself as a surveyor, Ali Binak’s eyes seemed to Diana to be those of a classical statue.
“No one is quarreling any longer about the boundaries established by bloodshed,” he said. “Those have been established forever on the face of the earth. It is the others that still stir up quarrels,” and he pointed towards the upland.
“The part that is not bloody?”
“Yes, just so, madam. For a good many years there has been discord over these pastures on the part of two villages, and it has not been brought to an end.”
“But is the presence of death indispensable in order for the boundary lines to be lasting?” Diana was surprised at having spoken, and particularly at her tone, in which a certain irony could clearly be distinguished.
Ali Binak smiled coldly.
“We are here, madam, precisely to prevent death from taking a hand in this affair.”
Bessian looked at his wife questioningly, as if to say, what has come over you? He thought he saw in her eyes a fleeting light that he had never seen before. Rather hurriedly, as if to wipe away all trace of this small incident, he asked Ali Binak the first question that came to him.
Around them all eyes were trained on the little group that was talking eagerly. Only a few old men sat to one side on some big stones, indifferent to everything.
Ali Binak went on talking slowly and only a minute later did Bessian realize that he had asked about the very thing he should have been careful not to mention, the deaths brought about by boundary disputes.
“If the man doesn’t die at once, and he forces himself along, whether walking or crawling, until he reaches someone else’s land, then, at the place where he collapses and succumbs to his wounds, there his muranë will be built, and even though it is on another’s land it remains forever the new boundary mark.”
Not only in Ali Binak’s appearance but in the syntax of his speech, there was something cold, something alien to ordinary language.
“And what if two men kill each other in the same instant?” Bessian asked.
Ali Binak raised his head. Diana thought she had never seen a man whose authority was so unaffected by his small stature.
“If two men kill each other at a certain distance from each other, then the boundary for each is the place where each man fell, and the space between is reckoned as belonging to no one.”
“No-man’s land,” Diana said. “Exactly as if it were a question of two countries.”
“It’s just as we were saying yesterday evening,” Bessian said. “Not only in their habits of speech, but in thought and action the people of the High Plateau have something of the attributes of independent countries.”
“And when there were no rifles?” Bessian went on. “The Kanun is older than firearms, isn’t it?”
“Yes, older, certainly.”
“Then they used blocks of stone for the purpose, didn’t they?”
“Yes,” said Ali Binak. “Before rifles were available, people practiced trial by ordeal, carrying stones. In the case of a quarrel between two families or villages or banners, each side appointed its champion. He who carried his block of stone farthest was the winner.”
“And what will happen today?”
Ali Binak looked around at the scattered crowd and then fixed his eyes upon
the small group of old men.
“Venerable elders of this banner have been invited to bear witness about the former boundaries of the pasture.”
Bessian and Diana turned towards the old men who were sitting as if they were actors waiting to be given their roles. They were so ancient that from moment to moment they must certainly have forgotten why they were there.
“Shall you be starting soon?” Bessian said.
Ali Binak took out of his fob a watch fastened by a chain.
“Yes,” he said. “I think we shall start very soon.”
“Shall we stay?” Bessian asked Diana in a low voice.
“If you like,” she replied.
The eyes of the mountain people, particularly of the women and children, followed their every movement, but now Bessian and Diana were somewhat accustomed to it. Diana was anxious only to avoid the tipsy stare of the surveyor. He and the other assistant, who had been introduced at the inn as a doctor, followed Ali Binak step by step, although he seemed to ignore their presence, never speaking to them.
A certain restlessness suggested that the time to begin the ceremony was at hand. Ali Binak and his assistants, who had deserted the visitors, went from one group of people to the next. Only now, after the little crowd had moved, did Bessian and Diana notice the old boundary stones strung out along a line that crossed the plateau from one end to the other.
Suddenly, a feeling of expectancy seemed to invade the country round. Diana slipped her arm under Bessian’s and pressed herself against him.
“But what if something happens?” she said.
“What sort of thing?”
“All the mountaineers are armed. Haven’t you noticed?”
He stared at her, and he was about to say, when you saw those two mountaineers with their ramshackle umbrellas you thought you could make fun of the High Plateau region, and now you sense the danger, don’t you? But he remembered that she had not said a thing about the umbrellas, and that he had concocted all this in his mind.
“You mean that someone might be killed,” he said. “I don’t think so.”
In fact, all the mountaineers were armed, and an atmosphere of chill menace hung over the scene. The sleeves of a number of them bore the black ribbon. Diana moved even closer to her husband.
“It will begin soon,” he said, still looking at the old men, who had risen to their feet.
Diana’s mind was strangely vacant. By chance as she looked about her, her eye fell on their coach. Drawn up on the edge of the pasture, black, with its rococo turnings and its velvet upholstery like that of a theatre loge, it stood out against the grey background of the mountains, completely foreign to the scene, out of place. She wanted to shake Bessian’s arm and tell him, “Look at the carriage,” but just at that moment, he whispered, “It’s beginning.”
One of the old men had left his group and he seemed to be getting ready to fulfill a task.
“Let’s move a little closer,” Bessian said, drawing her along by her hand. “It looks as if both sides have chosen this old man to mark the boundary.”
The old man took a few steps forward, and halted beside a stone and a clod of fresh earth. A heavy silence fell upon the plateau, but perhaps that was only an impression, because the grumbling of the mountain heights drowned the noise of conversation, so that the human element by itself, having given way, had no power to still any sound. And yet everyone had the feeling that silence had fallen.
The old man bent down, grasped the big stone with both hands, and heaved it up on his shoulder. Then someone set the clod of earth on that same shoulder. His withered face with its many brown patches showed no emotion. Then in that silence, a clear, resonant voice that came from someplace one could not identify, cried out: “Go forward, then, and if you do not go in good faith, may this stone crush you in the life to come!”
For a moment the old man’s eyes looked as if they had turned to stone. It seemed impossible that his limbs could make the slightest movement without bringing down the whole framework of his ancient body. Nevertheless, he took a step forward.
“Let’s go a little closer,” Bessian whispered.
Now they were very nearly in the center of the group of people who were following the old man.
“I hear someone speaking. Who is it?” Diana murmured.
“The old man,” Bessian answered in the same low tone. “He is swearing by the stone and the earth he carries on his shoulder, as the Kanun requires.”
The old man’s voice, deep, sepulcral, could scarcely be heard.
“By this stone and by this earth that I bear as a burden, by what I have heard from our forefathers, the old boundaries of the pasture are here and here, and here is where I set the boundaries myself. If I lie, may I carry nothing but stone and mud forever!”
The old man, followed by the same small group of people, moved slowly over the pasture. For the last time one could hear, “If I have not spoken truly, let this stone and this earth weigh me down in this life and the next.” And he dropped his load to the ground.
Some of the mountaineers who had been following him started at once to dig at all the places that he had pointed out.
“Look, they’re prising out the old markers and setting the new ones in place,” Bessian explained to his wife.
They heard the sound of hammer-blows. Someone called out, “Bring the children here so that they may see.”
Diana watched the setting of the boundary marks unseeing. Suddenly among the black jackets of the mountaineers she saw those hateful checks coming near, and she grasped her husband’s sleeve as if to ask him for help. He looked at her questioningly, but she did not have time to say a word to him, for the surveyor was already before them, smiling in a way that seemed even more drunken than before.
“What a farce,” he said, cocking his head towards the mountaineers. “What a tragi-comedy! You’re a writer, aren’t you? Well, write something about this nonsense, please.”
Bessian looked at him sternly, but made no reply.
“Pardon me for having troubled you. Especially you, madam, please.”
He bowed somewhat theatrically, and Diana smelled alcohol on his breath.
“What do you want?” she said coldly, without concealing her disgust.
The man made as if to speak, but it appeared that Diana’s manner overawed him, for he said nothing. He turned his head towards the mountaineers and stayed that way for a moment, his face set, and still lit with a spiteful half-smile.
“It’s enough to make you howl,” he muttered. “The art of surveying has never suffered a greater insult.”
“What?”
“How can I not be indignant at it? You must understand. Of course that’s the way I feel. I’m a surveyor. I’ve studied that science. I’ve learned the art of measuring land, of drawing up plans. And despite that I wander on the High Plateau all the year through without being able to practice my profession, because the mountain people do not regard a surveyor as having any skill in these matters. You’ve seen yourself how they settle disputed boundaries. With stones, with curses, with witches and what not. And my instruments spend years on end packed up in my luggage. I left them down there at the inn, in some corner or other. One day they’ll steal them on me, if they haven’t already—but I’ll steal a march on them before they pinch my things. I’ll sell them and drink up the proceeds. Oh, unhappy day! I’m going off now, sir. Ali Binak, my master, is beckoning me. Excuse my troubling you. Excuse me, lovely lady. Farewell.”
“What an odd fellow,” Bessian said when the surveyor had gone away.
“What shall we do now?” Diana asked.
They searched out the coachman among the thinning crowds, and he came to them as soon as they had caught his eye.
“Are we going?”
Bessian nodded.
As they turned towards their carriage, the old man put his hand on the stones that had just been set to mark the new borders, and laid a curse upon all those who might dare to m
ove them.
Diana felt that the mountain folk, distracted for some time by the business of setting the markers, were once again turning their attention upon them. She was the first to climb into the coach, and Bessian waved for the last time to the distant figures of Ali Binak and his assistants.
Diana was a little tired, and all during the ride back to the inn she scarcely spoke.
“Shall we have some coffee before we leave?” Bessian suggested.
“If you like,” Diana said.
While serving them, the innkeeper told them about famous cases of boundary disputes in which Ali Binak had been the arbitrator, the details of which had in some sort passed into the oral legendry of the mountains. You could see that he was very proud of his guest.
“When he is in these parts, he always stays at my inn.”
“But where does he live?” Bessian asked, just to be saying something.
“He doesn’t have any fixed residence,” the innkeeper said. “He is everywhere and nowhere. He’s always on the road, because there is no end to the quarrels and disputes, and people call on him to judge them.”
Even after he had served them their coffee, he went on talking about Ali Binak and the centuries-old hatreds that rend mankind. He brought up the subject again when he came back to take away the cups and collect his money, and once more on accompanying them to their carriage.
Bessian was about to climb into the coach when he felt Diana press his arm.
“Look,” she said softly.
A few paces away a young mountaineer, very pale, was looking at them as if dumbfounded. A black ribbon was sewn to his sleeve.
“There’s a man engaged in the blood feud,” Bessian said to the innkeeper. “Do you know him?”
The innkeeper’s squinting eyes stared into the void a few yards to one side of the mountaineer. It was obvious that he was about to enter the inn and he had just stopped to see these persons of distinction get into their carriage.
“No,” said the innkeeper. “He came by three days ago on his way to Orosh, to pay the blood-tax. “Say, young man,” he called to the stranger. “What’s your name?”
The young man, visibly surprised at the innkeeper’s hail, turned to look at him. Diana was already inside the carriage, but Bessian paused an instant on the footboard to hear the stranger’s answer. Diana’s face, slightly tinged with blue by the glass, was framed in the window of the coach.