“Bembitt?’ She gulped, but said, “You don’t frighten me,” and managed to sit straight.
His eyes were white ice. “You’re a whore. You give your body to all comers day after day. A whore has no pride. Her flesh is filth, and her mind is empty. If I give permission for my people to rape you, the only difference is that you won’t be paid. I’ve no desire to touch you since you disgust me, but watching you beaten and spread wide by another might be amusing. However, I’ll honour my bargain concerning food and warmth for just as long as you continue to answer questions and make no attempt to escape or to retaliate against anything done to you. If you become difficult, my man Rudd can invent several interesting encouragements. He’s done so in the past. And the other man I spoke of, he’s also a man of considerable imagination, He’ll be in to see you later. Make him welcome, and I doubt he’ll hurt you. Play the fool, and he’ll know exactly how to handle you.” Freya was shaking, staring, unable to speak, feeling sick. She couldn’t swallow, as if her stomach had risen and blocked her throat. Kallivan saw and recognised her horror. He laughed. It sounded like the key turning in the lock again. “So, does a whore fear rape? Fucking is all you’re good for. These are facts which you’d do well to remember. In the meantime, you’ll be taken downstairs and given proper food and drink. You’ll need to maintain your strength.”
The passing of time had always been a tumble of uneven days without meaning for Freya, but she knew herself twenty-one years of age now, and too old for the child-loving Kallivan. But Rudd’s treatment might easily prove worse. The other man, whether Bembiit or another, would surely be vile. No friend of Kalivan’s could be sane. She knew her life would be short unless she found a means of escape. That was unlikely, but everyone needed a dream.
Imagining slow starvation, she hoped simply that her death would be quick, Slaughter by torture would be worse, but finish quicker. The poppy brought occasional courage, but she was as terrified as she had ever been.
The old walls creaked in the winter squalls and blistered through the uncovered windows. The little blanket now kept her ankles and feet warmer, doubled over and wrapped around, while her own cloak stayed as her principal saviour. Then, finally, she was led downstairs.
Chapter Seven
“Giardon was just a bright twitching twinkle in our god Hadith’s eye. First, he made Shamm and filled it with beauty, with great birds and animals, and with rivers and lakes.
But then he decided there should be islands for there was land left over, and the mighty Hadmith fashioned many islands. The greatest was Giardon, and he made this rich. The sun always shone, there were jewels and beautiful birds, huge cats and gentle wolves. God began to love this island more than he loved Shamm, and so he decided to join the two. He made a bridge of clouds, and there the two wondrous countries became one.
Finally, after a long time watching the beauty grow and bloom, Hadith made one more decision. He created a different sort of animal, not so pretty, but more intelligent and he called it man, with woman to help him make children. These lived on Shamm, for he did not wish to soil Giardon with humans, who were clever enough to know how to slay the animals, cut down the trees, and disobey their god.
Finally Hadith became angry, and when no one was looking, he destroyed the bridge, and once again Shamm and Giardon became separate countries.
So many of the Shammites decided to leave Shamm and live in peace on Giardon, and they made beautiful boats, and we all came over to live here. But some were left in Shamm, and instead of accepting that we are all the same people, they claimed Shamm as their own, and made one nasty man a king, and refused to permit any of us back to live there. So we are trapped here, and although it is beautiful – it is also very small.
The son of the son of the son of the son of the son of the son who was the original king of Shamm, is now Elkader. He should be King of Shamm as well as King of Giardon. And so we plan to invade.
But they outnumber us. If they see us coming in boats, they will fight us. But if we come through a tunnel, they will be caught by surprise, and we will kill them all and take back our kingdom.”
“I reckons you gotta know,” Symon said, “that we all has them old stories and tis all a load o’ bollicking twaddle.”
“That,” scowled the storyteller, “is sacrilege, Master Symon. I shall report you to the king if you say such things again.”
Jak grinned. “We’re foreigners. We have different gods. And different stories.”
Symon nodded. “You go putting yer fingers in the shit wiv me, an I won’t be diggin’ no more tunnels. Tis my opinion, and I ain’t bothered by none wot don’t agree. But some of us, we likes our old stories too. But we don’t go believing ‘em. Tis childish. We done growed up over them centuries.”
The sweat glistened across their faces, dripping from hair, chins and bodies. “I smell like a bakehouse,” said Jak.
“Dunno wot you’s cookin,” Symon said with a slight step backwards, “but reckon I gonna shop elsewhere.”
Jak was laughing as he swallowed his own sweat. “Buy a boat instead.”
Day’s swelter continued. But then the sweat turned to ice. As the sun set behind the cliffs, the darkness fell deep and sudden, like the death of any man tumbling from the clifftop into the chasm. No twilight soothed the change, and as one moon peeped up from between the trees, and the smaller moon rose with tentative hesitation over the sea, both only crescents, their light was little more than a shimmer on the curling palm leaves.
The ice cut through. Day’s blistering heat turned to night’s frozen black dreams. Fine drops of rain hit the ground and became black ice. All along the base of the gorge the kidnapped men swaddled themselves in whatever blankets they had, or grabbed from each other, and slept uneasily as the wind whistled from crag to crag.
But now Jak, and Symon as close as a shadow, were creeping the steps, climbing to the roof of the world and looking out upon the stretching land beyond. “Tis East,” Symon whispered, pointing, “and home.”
Through the forested slopes where shadow crossed shadow and merged, there was a forest of shadows thicker than the forest of trees that wove it.
Their slow and careful steps, once past the camps of the Islanders, then sped through undergrowth, across open plains, and into small forests narrowed by piled logs where almost every tree had been chopped to provide the inner supports for the tunnel to come. They ran through these to scrubby deserts and up into low hills plastered with thorn bushes and the berries of the kindlepoor, rich yellow and oozing juice. Here Jak signalled to stop, still avoiding sound, and they lay beneath the bushes, away from the climbing thorns, where they could stretch just a finger or two and eat, for the rest of the night, on the berries they had always loved, but which were rare in Eden.
One step beyond the lush fall of ripe berries, the Mitzi tree soared to exhibit a hundred branches, and the double roots which tumbled from each branch to start new growth, until the Mitzi tree created its own forest over a hundred years or more of root to branch and branch to root. This tree was young and the roots hung hopeful while the falling lilac blossoms grew amongst each clump of leaf, ignoring the balmy winter season.
There was still a frosty silence as Jak and Symon woke to sunrise. The ice was already melting like an early dew on leaf and berry, but as the steam of condensation rose up, so the heat began to blow in. The sky turned briefly vermillion, then dulled into lilac-grey, and from there to an almost colourless blue.
Symon rolled over, blinked his eyes open, and gazed into huge golden eyes gazing back. Both blinked. And both Symon and the golden eyes sprang away, nervous of the new thing unexpectedly seen.
The bird song swelled between treetops and the sun glistened higher, providing enough warmth to melt the night’s icicles, but not yet strong enough to blister the banks of the stream which dithered from its source in the hills, and down towards the distant ocean and the hazy horizon of tidal waves, and perhaps the coast of Eden.
&nbs
p; The huge cat sat, watching the two humans stretch, wake, and gaze back in both wonder and fear.
“It’s a lacine,” whispered Jak. “The second I’ve ever seen, and the first so close.”
Symon said nothing. He felt the cat’s eyes had crept inside his head and already knew everything he was thinking. He saw the long black curve of its claws and knew they could rip his own eyes from his face, and the rest of his flesh from his bones. Yet he also knew this would never happen. The cat’s face summarised Symon’s own idea of beauty, and he was already in love. Sitting quite still, and now unblinking, Symon eventually breathed, “Yes. Tis a lacine, I’d guess. And the most fucking beautiful livin’ thing wot I’ve ever seen.”
The cat appeared unamused. The face was long-snouted, the eyes, rich and huge, the markings on the face a vibrant golden orange but buried, almost unseen in the black fur. A short mane lined the spine, which then sloped down in one elegant curve to its hindquarters, where the golden stripes leapt clear from the black, and blazed in longer and lighter fur, stretching to its whip of fluff coated tail. Its feline whiskers were short and thick, curving upwards, and its jaw was snapped shut, showing no teeth. Yet somehow its expression remained. Interested. Benign. Until it whirled around and leapt away in such a mighty bound that it blurred into the sunshine.
“Bloody hell,” Symon said. “I ain’t never seen nuffin like it.”
“I saw the natives give a lacine skin in exchange for us. Are we worth it?” Jak stood staring into the empty distance where the cat had been. “I hope they don’t kill them or hunt them.”
“I once seen a picture of one of them old stories o’ lions and tigers and prehistorialed stuff wot they says used to live in Eden and Shamm. But this be so much more bloody gorgeous. Bloody sight bigger too. A bit like one o’ them white wolves wot you hardly never sees, almost big as horses. But this ain’t no dog. This be a cat.”
“But unfortunately,” Jak said, folding his cape over his shoulder, “We need to move. That lacine, perhaps, will inspire us to reach that coast.”
“Reckon ‘tis further away than wot it looks.”
And Jak agreed. It was a long trudge, but gradually the birdsong increased like a minstrel’s troop arguing over what tune to play, and each man playing his own favourite. Some of the high twitter was as beautiful as a lacine, other birds squawked, others crowed while others flew high with a song that echoed on one piercing whiplash.
The smash of the waves slunk closer, and with each mile they trudged, the waves grew. “We ain’t gonna swim that,” Symon said.
“I never meant to,” Jak smiled. “But we can build a boat from twigs, reeds and tumbleweed. Small logs if we can find any, since we have no weapon for cutting. “
“One o’ them eagles,’ Symon squinted upwards, pointing, “could carry us easy as grabbin’ the back o’ me shirt collar, and carry us both to dump back in Eden.”
“I doubt any have been trained for that,” Jak said, flopping down suddenly on a large flat stone beside the slope they were following. He also gazed up. The eagle, travelling the coastal wind like some free passenger on the tail end of a train, swept on towards the camps which Jak and Symon had left.
Now Symon squatted beside Jak, chewing the last Kindlepoor berries from his front pocket. “We bin gone well-nigh three days,” he said, spitting golden juice. “At least, tonight t’will be three nights. And we ain’t got to the beach yet. And how long d’you reckon this bastard boat’s gonna take us? A ten-day? An anovver ten-day sailing? We gonna be dead o’ starvation long afore we gets home. We gotta hunt. But not fer lacine.”
“We have too few weapons for anything large,” Jak nodded. “But you know I have a small secret knife, and I’m well aware that you have one too.”
“Me left boot.”
“My right leg in the britches turn-up.”
“Rabbits,” suggested Symon. “An’ turnips.”
“Berries, apples, coconuts and wild beans,” said Jak. “But not to carry heavy supplies until we’re too weak to eat them. We get to the ocean first.”
They followed the leaping stream which sprang from some higher point and rushed spangled down the slope beside them. It reminded Jak of Lydiard, where the source of the mighty Cornucopia was a spray of glossy water from between the rocks, something so small it could fill one water cask, no more, yet swelled, travelling on for miles until it became the nurturing breast of the entire country. Here, the slope became steep, with the hillside hurtling down in a small precipice, and the riverlett falling in a dash of white. Then the water would fade its energy and roll away in gentle meandering lassitude.
They slept the night within sight of the river, but now it was wider, slower, bluer, and much closer to its final dip into the sea, and its surrender to the waves.
After the usual freeze of the night, they woke to crocodiles.
Before, Symon had fallen into a passionate adoration of a lacine. Now he stared at a massive jaw opening to a hundred dirty teeth and a throat almost wide enough to swallow him whole. He jumped and kicked. The reptile looked at him with disappointment. A minute previously, he would have been such an easy breakfast.
Ramming out fists and feet, Symon yelled for Jak to wake, and bent to reach for his knife. The crocodile immediately snapped, and one heavy fingertip disappeared into the dark clamped cavern.
Not even yelling, barely concerned about the pain, Symon thrust his knife into the beast’s eye. It thrashed upwards with both tail and body and raced backwards, immediately slipping into the river’s waters, submerging unseen. Jak was now at Symon’s side, ripping the hem of his shirt to make a bandage. Other crocodiles could be seen on the banks, but most shimmied back into the water and only two remained watching.
Wrapped in a ripped shirt, Symon regarded his hand and the one finger which was clearly shorter than the others. “Not wot I done expected,” he said, just a little tremulous. “They says as how there be them nobbly things in the south by the Eden Plains. I don't like ‘em.”
“No pain?” Jak asked, surprised.
“Well, it bloody hurts,” smiled Symon. “I ain’t that pecooliar. I hurts like most folk hurts. But it don’t bother me none. Them as makes a whole load o’ fuss ‘bout hurting, well it wastes time, don’t it? You just gets fixed up and sorts out the problems.”
“Our problem is to bloody get out of here,” nodded Jak. “But watch out for crocodiles, lacine, wolves and natives with spears.”
“Lacine.” Symon stopped abruptly and grinned. “If I gotta be eaten by some hungry beast then I chooses them cats. They can have me.”
“No one’s getting you,” said Jak. “I need you myself.”
The crocodiles slithered from river to bank, from bank to river, and swam to the banks on the opposite side where they basked unmolested in the sun. Wary of the reptiles, Jak and Symon started to search for food, collecting whatever they found at some considerable distance from the river and its occupants. There seemed little rush. They sat often in the shade, sometimes dozing. But by the following morning there was a great pile of food to cook up, and a pile even larger of what they needed to build a boat. The night they had spent in the trees. Jak curled within the fork of an oak tree which stretched and bulged, spreading branches strong enough to hold a man. He slept badly with oak gall in his ear and twigs in his back, but he was safe from crocodiles and still woke refreshed. Symon plaited himself a hammock from tumbleweed and hung it high. He snored the night through.
They both woke to voices. Hidden in foliage, they peered down between the leaves but did not speak. They had feared being followed by the islanders since they had been threatened with death if any had tried to escape. And Jak was better noticed than most, having been recognised as a lord with knowledge of falconry and scribing. His disappearance would be quickly noted. There had been many hours when they had expected to be stopped after leaving the campsite. They had listened for voices, threats, running feet, and the whizz of arrows. When none of this had
happened, they had been both delighted and surprised.
“They got plenty others,” nodded Symon. “Don’t need every one of us, does they?”
But now there were men approaching, and they were neither hiding nor concealing their voices. The voices were muted, and only occasional words could be picked out from the buzz, the splash and snort of the river life, the insistent and sometimes raucous bird song, and the increasing crackle of melt on leaf and river water, blending with the slight whistle of a mild wind. The men appeared to be standing in a small group beneath the trees near the riverbank and could just be seen from where Jak and Symon sat.
But the clothes seemed wrong. The Islanders had been wearing their own fashions – neither shirts nor britches. Instead they wore long loose trousers to the ankle, untied, and were bare to the waist. Not having yet seen any females at all, Jak and Symon assumed women’s clothes were different again, but had no special interest in such things. Women walking bare-breasted, as the men were, might have been interesting, but seemed unlikely. Instead, the men they could now see and hear talking wore shabby but normal clothes of Eden design, and their speech was not heavily accented. A faint accent lisped, barely discernible. And as they continued to listen, both Jak and Symon realised that the accent was of Shamm. This was not what they had expected.
“I’m risking it,” Jak told Symon.
He climbed from the tree, simply stretching down his legs, and, one hand to a low branch, slipped to the ground. Symon followed him. They were heard at once. Five heads turned immediately in their direction.
“They be talking about some boat, ain’t they? And tis a boat we wants.”
“Which is precisely why I intend interrupting them.”
The Mill Page 8
