Slaves of the Mastery

by William Nicholson

  I am the avenger.

  ‘You said something would happen to stop the wedding,’ said Sisi. ‘But nothing’s happened.’

  ‘You’re not married yet,’ said Kestrel. ‘They can’t make you be married if you don’t want to.’

  ‘They can,’ said Sisi. ‘If everyone expects you to do something, and they’re all looking at you, then you do it.’

  ‘You’ll know what to do when the time comes.’

  What Kestrel couldn’t tell her was that if all went as she planned, Sisi would have no decision to make.

  ‘There, you see, my pet,’ said Lunki. ‘You’re not to worry, like the friend says.’

  Lunki didn’t approve of Kestrel. She knew nothing of Kestrel’s concealed plans, and had no opinion about her opinions. Her objection was that the Johdila Sirharasi of Gang should not have a friend. It demeaned her high status. Ordinary people had friends. Royalty had subjects. Lunki could not imagine venturing any criticism of her mistress, certainly not aloud, so she limited herself to calling Kestrel ‘the friend’, as one might say ‘the hairdresser’, ‘the dance instructor’. In this way she turned Kestrel into a functionary like herself, and was satisfied.

  Two carriages ahead, the Johanna gazed out of his window at the High Domain, and he in his turn was awed. It was smaller than Obagang, his own capital city, heart of the Sovereignty of Gang: but by comparison with this jewel of a city, Obagang suddenly seemed shabby. The great buildings of his capital were made of stone, but they were squat heavy structures, quite unlike these exquisite domes. And the bulk of his city was nothing but timber hovels, crowding one upon another like so much refuse. He had never felt this before. As ruler of the greatest empire of the civilised world, he had been accustomed to a comfortable all-pervading sense of superiority. It came as an unpleasant shock to find himself entering a palace grander than any he possessed. The Grand Vizier, he reflected, had been quite right in arranging this marriage. The man who had formed this country out of nothing at all, the man they called the Master, would make a powerful enemy. How had he done so much, so quickly? This lake, for example: there had been no lake here before. This had been a desolate region, inhabited if at all by passing nomadic shepherds. No one had wanted it. No one had minded when a group of strangers had camped here, fifty years ago. He recalled his late father saying, ‘Let them be. We need a caravan stop out there.’ A caravan stop! If his father could see it now! The lake alone must be several miles long, and all dug out of the rocky ground at the command of this one man.

  ‘Sit up straight, Foofy,’ said his wife. ‘Remember you’re the Johanna of Gang, and all these people we’re about to meet are dirt under your feet.’

  ‘Dirt under my feet. Yes, dear.’

  ‘You’re not to simper or pick your cuticles or eat with your mouth open. When anyone speaks to you, remember to glower.’

  ‘Yes, dear.’

  ‘Show me your glower.’

  He glowered.

  ‘There, now. You look just like your father.’

  Zohon, Commander of the Johjan Guards, magnificent in his dress uniform, rode at the head of his men. All three thousand guards were either riding behind him, or marching in double lines on either side of the procession of royal carriages. He had not asked if this mighty escort would be welcome in the host city. Nothing had been said on the matter. The Johanna had made no objection, for all Barzan’s efforts in that direction. So Zohon proposed to lead all three thousand men into the heart of the High Domain.

  Secretly, as he sat tall in the saddle, and the lakeside came nearer, he expected to be stopped. Should that happen, his plan was to attack at once. A heavy iron battering-ram lay concealed under one of the carriages, for smashing down the gates. But no one stopped him. No armed force of any kind was to be seen, other than his own men. And across the long causeway ahead, the great gates were open.

  The procession came to a stop at the land end of the causeway. The ceremonial open carriage, as yet unoccupied, was now drawn forward into the lead, and a picked squad of mounted Johjan Guards, all exactly the same height and colouring, took up their places on either side. The Johanna and the Johdi put on their crowns, which were impressive, but also heavy and uncomfortable. And as Kestrel watched, the Johdila was dressed at last in her wedding gown.

  It was a remarkable creation. The dressmaker insisted that the Johdila wear no underclothing of any kind beneath it, which Sisi found thrilling. Not that the dress revealed any part of her slender young body: the perfectly-cut white silk sheath covered her from throat to ankles, lying so tight and close to her body that it was almost a second skin. Over her head was drawn a close-fitting white silk cap, cut to follow the curve of her neck down to her shoulders. Over her face hung a simple square of white gossamer, which fluttered in and out as she breathed. But all this was no more than the inner part of the creation. Over and around it, over her white-clad head and body, sustained by fine wire supports fixed to her head and shoulders, there floated an entire body veil made of the lightest silk, so fine that it was almost invisible: more a swirl of mist than a garment. Within this all-enveloping aura her slender silk-skinned body moved like a mystery of seduction, offering to the entranced eye of the onlooker everything and nothing, charged with the intoxicating promise of beauty.

  ‘Oh, Sisi!’ cried Kestrel, as she gazed on the finished result. ‘I’ve never seen anyone look so beautiful in all my life!’

  ‘There, pet,’ murmured Lunki. ‘My baby’s happy now.’

  The dressmaker fretted about her, adjusting the fall of the body veil.

  ‘Must she ride in a carriage?’ he kept saying. ‘The material is cut to hang. If she sits, it will crumple.’

  Sisi herself was torn. On the one hand, she didn’t want her dress to crumple. On the other hand, she didn’t want to walk over the very long causeway. So she allowed herself to be handed into the open carriage, where she sat facing her father and mother.

  The procession now set off once more, the horses’ hooves booming on the boards of the causeway. Zohon rode immediately behind the royal carriage, making his horse perform a high-prancing trot to hold it at the procession’s slow pace without himself seeming to amble. The long line of carriages, escorted by close ranks of Johjan Guards, rolled along behind, covering so great a distance that by the time the front of the procession reached the great gates, the tail was yet to set foot on the causeway.

  As the open carriage carrying the bride passed through the gates, an orchestra struck up, and a choir began to sing. The Johdila looked round in wonder at the beautiful buildings she was passing. In every window, on every terrace, musicians were playing their instruments, and groups of singers were singing. At the same time small children, squeezed between the performers, were throwing flower petals in an unending cascade. The petals came skittering and floating down around Sisi, settling here and there on her body veil, filling the air with colour and mingling with the streams of song, so that it seemed as if it were the falling flowers themselves that flooded the street with such sweet sounds.

  Zohon, prancing proudly behind her, his handsome face looking round, concealing his intense excitement, saw no signs of any armed men. All he saw, in astonishing numbers, were musicians. He almost laughed aloud. Not much danger from a bunch of fiddlers and warblers!

  Kestrel leaned out of the window of the Johdila’s carriage to gaze at the city of her enemy, and she too was amazed. This nation of murderers and slavers was beautiful, its streets charming, and its citizens – musical. And how musical! She realised as they rolled slowly up the street that the great anthem was modulating from one group of performers to the next, so that the melody was always taken by the musicians closest to the royal carriage, while the harmonies continued to swell from behind them, and from further up the street. She began to notice that the eyes of the performers were raised, all looking in the same direction. Following their gaze, she caught a glimpse of a curving glazed roof terrace, where an indistinct figure was moving
back and forth, beating the air with outstretched arms.

  The Master pounded the upper levels, conducting his multiple orchestras and choirs, singing the great anthem himself as it rolled out over his city below. Lost in music, white hair flying, with the sweep of his arm he caused a hundred singers to burst into song five streets away, even as the violins below him poured out their eager melody. He stabbed a finger, and trumpets sounded from the flower market; turned his hand, and two hundred drummers stationed in the plaza began their insistent toccata. Now the bass fiddles started up their thrumming, all over the city, making the air vibrate with a sound deeper than sound. The Master tugged the air, and a thousand sopranos hit the first thrilling high note of the final movement, the sound bursting skywards like a field of larks. Here came the strings, the sweet yearning of the violas, the loving murmur of the cellos, weaving into the call of the pipes – he strode over the glowing spaces to the far end to punch one finger towards his massed male choir, and with a shiver that was felt all over the High Domain fifteen hundred bass voices began to sing, and the Master, lost in the glory of his own creation, was singing with them.

  A city in song, a city become a symphony, to welcome the lovely young bride. Let them see, thought the Master, passionate in his moment of command, let them see the true meaning of mastery! This is the world I have made, this is my gift to my people, this is my promise of a new world!

  Hanno Hath heard the music that signalled the coming of the bridal party, and knew that Kestrel was somewhere in the procession. With Professor Fortz’s permission, he went to the high window of the academy library to watch the bride go by.

  ‘Weddings!’ said Fortz in disgust. ‘Sugar now. Pill later.’

  ‘You’re not married yourself, Professor?’

  ‘Marriage is a leisure activity. Don’t have the time.’

  ‘It’s given me the greatest happiness of my life,’ said Hanno.

  ‘Has it?’ Fortz was very surprised. ‘I dare say you like hot meals.’ He stood on a chair to look out of the window himself. ‘Great stars! Who are these people? All that gilding. So provincial!’

  The choir in the building facing the library, taking their cue from the Master above, now burst into song, making Fortz jump. The waves of co-ordinated sound, however, seriously impressed him.

  ‘The man’s a genius, you have to admit. Listen to that! The sound of a people united in song!’

  ‘United in slavery, too,’ murmured Hanno.

  ‘What of that? Ask yourself what makes a nation prosperous. Good order, and hard work. What sort of people do as they’re told, and work hard? Slaves. Strip away all that sentimental old nonsense about rights and freedoms, and what do you get? The most prosperous country in the world!’

  From the street outside came a series of trumpet fanfares, climbing, heaping, towering over the song of the massed choirs.

  ‘The bride must have reached the great hall,’ said Fortz.

  Hanno had not seen Kestrel.

  ‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘if I might go out to watch.’

  ‘Well, why not? No one can concentrate in all this din.’

  Hanno left the library at about the same time that the Johdila was stepping down from her open carriage, before the entrance to the great hall. However, he did not try to push his way through the crowd to watch the ceremony. He turned the other way, and headed through the gates and across the now deserted causeway.

  It was time to prepare for their departure.

  18

  Mumpo fights the manaxa

  Kestrel was shivering. From the moment the huge bridal procession had entered the High Domain, she had been expecting Zohon to strike. Column after column of his Johjan Guards came marching up the street, and nowhere could she see any force of men with which the Mastery could resist them. But the Commander rode smilingly onwards, and the ceremony proceeded as planned.

  She climbed out of the carriage with Lunki, and followed the bride up the steps leading to the great domed hall where the wedding was to be celebrated. The music swirled all round her. From within the hall came the sound of a choir singing a joyful song. The Johdila, already out of her open carriage, flanked by the Johanna and the Johdi, was being met at the high arched entrance by the Keeper of the Master’s Household, bowing low and sweeping out his arms. Now they were all processing into the hall. Kestrel followed.

  The hall amazed her. The immense intricately-carved stone pillars sustaining the floating domes; the arena erected for the wedding, formed out of a lattice of slender oak supports, bearing cushioned seats, surmounted by a crimson gold-fringed canopy; the great glowing light-filled space above, shining like a private sky; and filling all of this vast space, soaring up to the sunset-coloured glass itself, the triumphant song of the four hundred singers of the Master’s personal choir. They stood on two specially-constructed stands of their own, on either side of the entrance doors, all wearing long-sleeved robes of crimson and gold.

  ‘The bridal chorale,’ the Keeper whispered to the Johanna. ‘Composed by the Master for the entry of the bride.’

  ‘Composed by the Master!’

  ‘All the music for the wedding is composed and conducted by the Master himself.’

  The ranks of tall Johjan Guards came pouring in on all sides, still marching in perfect time, and filled the spaces behind the timber arena. Kestrel realised that if there was to be a battle, it must begin here, in this awe-inspiring but ever more crowded hall. She looked round to discover the various routes of escape. There were entrances on three sides: one to the main street, through which they were passing now, and two side entrances, both of which were closed and jammed with spectators. There was an internal passage on the far side, leading to further rooms within the great hall. And across the hall there was a narrow flight of stairs rising to a gallery, which ran all round the hall just below the level of the lowest dome. But before she could examine this further, she must follow the royal party into the arena itself.

  There was sand on the arena floor, which seemed out of place on such a grand occasion. Also, she realised as she stepped upwards, the floor was raised, like a wide stage. The Johdila was now being led to a special bridal throne, in the centre of the left hand bank of benches. Kestrel took her place behind the royal party.

  ‘Quite a place, isn’t it?’ the Johanna said to his wife. ‘Why can’t we get our fellows at home to build us something like this? Look at those pillars! Carved all the way to the top. You’d swear they were real leaves growing there.’

  ‘Too fussy for me,’ said the Johdi. Her gold cloak made her hot, and her crown hurt her head.

  ‘So what’s going to happen here, Barzan?’ The Johanna gestured at the sand-strewn platform before them.

  ‘They call it the manaxa, mightiness. It’s a kind of fighting. They think very highly of it here.’

  ‘Does it go on long?’

  ‘I don’t believe so, sire. After it there will be the tantaraza. The bridal dance.’

  ‘Does that go on long?’

  ‘Altogether perhaps an hour, gloriousness. The wedding banquet is to be eaten at noon.’

  The Johanna signed. Already breakfast seemed a long way away.

  With a roll of drums and a shout from the male voices in the choir, a second procession now entered, bringing the bridegroom. In the lead came twelve young lords of the Mastery, chosen by Ortiz to be his attendants for the ceremony. They wore their finest garments, the long-trained robes over the richly-embroidered tunics, in the style that was currently the height of fashion. The light falling from the high domes above stippled them in orange and gold, until they passed under the canopy, and all the air turned rosy pink. The colour scheme seemed arbitrary as the various elements in the composition moved about the hall, but once they were all in their places a design emerged, in which the dominant tones of the canopy, the sand, and the outer blue light, were picked up and heightened by the subtler costumes of the guests, all leading the eye to the centre of the composition, t
he pure white simplicity of the bride. The only discordant elements were the ones out of the Mastery’s control: the purple of the Johjan Guards, and the turquoise markings on the body of Ozoh the Wise.

  Now Kestrel, watching every moment, saw the entrance of the bridegroom himself. Marius Semeon Ortiz wore white; though the straps, buckles and belts of his garments were all silver. His tanned face and his tawny hair looked particularly handsome set off by the surrounding white. Walking tall and proud, he advanced to his own crimson throne facing the Johdila’s across the arena, bowed low to the royal court of Gang, and sat down. The young lords sat down round him. His personal servants lined up at the back. Kestrel found Bowman among them, and for a short secret moment their eyes met.

  The massed choirs now delivered their final stirring chord, and the storm of music which had swept the High Domain for almost an hour was finally stilled.

  The Keeper of the Master’s Household stepped forward.

  ‘To celebrate the coming union of your people and ours,’ he proclaimed, ‘the Master is pleased to present his finest fighters, who will meet in the noble art of manaxa.’

  Kestrel’s eyes sought out Zohon. He stood with his arms folded, watching the ceremony. His men entirely surrounded the arena, standing six deep. There was nothing to stop him. What was he waiting for?

  Ba-ba-ba-bam! Ba-ba-ba-bam! The drums beat for the entrance of four manacs, who now appeared through a tunnel beneath the stands, and filed into the ring. Oiled bodies gleaming, limbguards and blades polished to a high shine, they jumped up one by one onto the platform and bowed in deep respect, first to the Johanna and his family, then to Ortiz. Lars Janus Hackel the trainer watched from his position by the tunnel entrance, and led the courteous applause for each contender.