Kalpa Imperial

by LAngelica Gorodischer, Ursula K. Le Guin

  The men and women went back to their villages, the women singing as they went:

  A badger made fun of the hunter,

  A dibris danced with a spider,

  A fly got suffocated in an anthill,

  A worm went out fishing in a boat,

  And a fool laughed and then he cried.

  But all is not said, because the men of the South now danced thirty-eight dances and the last was called The Doorway, and because on the frontier between the North and South there was an encampment where more than a hundred men and women were waiting, among them He Who Had Come, Maannda, the blind woman, Rammsa, and some others who had asked or whom he had asked to stay.

  And after many days the emissaries of the North sat down on the rush mats in the middle of the camp, listened in silence, and accepted. They had no alternative. The Empire had no army, it had no emperor, for Sebbredel’s wife and sons and brothers, as fatuous as he, as stupid as General Vordoess’Dan, had fled the capital; it had no forces, no hopes, nothing.

  This was the only time that the Golden Throne of the greatest of empires stood, not on marble, but on the earth. And He Who Had Come sat down on it, and Rammsa placed on his head a crown of green leaves, and so he was crowned emperor, and from that place he ruled the Empire under his true name.

  And that’s it, good people, that’s all. I thank you for listening to me with such attention and patience, but what remains to be said is not really a job for a storyteller. We all know what happened in those years, anyway; and if it’s possible that any of you don’t, you can look at the history books and marvel at those old pages. But since not all is ever said, the temptation is great; and I can tell you, before we all go home to take a hot bath, put on slippers, and sit down by the fire, that one day he left, for he who came must go. That he walked through the green world, leading Rammsa’s oldest great-grandson by the hand, that having come to the first tall trees he let the child go, telling him to run straight back home. That he walked on and was gone. That he walked into the forest and never returned. But as a consolation and a subject of meditation for just men and prudent women, I will remind you that what they say in the hot, harsh, green South is true: no, not all is said.

  The Old Incense Road

  I’m an orphan,” The Cat had said, and without looking at him old Z’Ydagg had answered, “So what? That’s a reason why we should take you on?”

  “I mean I can look after myself,” the boy insisted. “Nobody’s going to come making any demands on you. And I’m not a slacker. I can be useful. I’ve done a lot of jobs, but what I like best is traveling. And how can a poor man travel unless it’s his job?”

  “You’ll have to talk to the boss, Mr. Bolbaumis,” the old man said.

  “Old man, I’ve already told you not to call me mister,” the fat man interrupted. “What am I? some sort of la-di-da in velvet and jewels? A ballroom-dancing layabout who sleeps till noon? A parasite living off other men’s work? Eh? Is that what I am? Eh? Not me! I’m an honest worker, a poor man sweating and straining to earn a pittance, hardly enough to feed his children, oh, it’s a hard life!”

  The question is whether The Cat joined the caravan only because Bolbaumis took him on as soon as he knew the boy wouldn’t ask for wages or complain about the food. True, he was thin, too thin, and might not be strong enough for the hard work on a caravan, but it was equally true that he was thin because he didn’t eat much. The fat boss took him on for another reason, too: because he saw a pleased look in the twentier’s eyes. He kept asking himself what old Z’Ydagg could have seen in this halfbaked kid; but it wasn’t the first time the old man had come along as twentier on one of his caravans, and Bolbaumis had learned to respect and trust him. And it should be said that the obese merchant respected very few people and trusted fewer.

  “What’s your name?” Bolbaumis had asked.

  “Gennän,” the boy said.

  “I don’t know why I’m taking him on,” the fat man sighed, not to anybody in particular but grumbling at Z’Ydagg. “I just don’t know. I’m a generous man, that’s what it is. I’m sorry for him, yes sir, sorry for him. A poor abandoned boy, all alone without a father to counsel him or a mother to protect him. That’s why I’m taking him on, even though he’ll obviously be a dead loss. Sickly, pale, hungry, more eyes than brains, and that round mug of his—he looks more like an alley cat than a human being.”

  And so he came to be called The Cat.

  The caravan set off to the east on a spring morning, and until they were out of the city fat Bolbaumis walked at the head of the long line. After him came five armed men. And after them the merchants, alone or with a partner, or with servants and employees. And at the end the cook with his two assistants, and the loaders and workmen. But when they left the city and walked through fields, and the fields became mountains and the mountains led down to the desert, Bolbaumis mounted his little horse and let Z’Ydagg lead.

  The first thing the old man did was send the armed guards back to walk with or behind the boss; he told them he didn’t need them. Then, as the path they followed kept getting rougher and dustier, he reviewed their marching order and shook his head in annoyance, reflecting that businessmen know a lot about business but nothing about the desert, while he knew a lot about the desert, and though there was no reason why at his age he should learn anything about business, it would be a good thing if these merchants he was guiding learned something about the desert. And having satisfactorily concluded this meditation, he set himself to introduce a little real order into the confusion of men, animals, and vehicles following him; only a little, since you can’t do much while walking and so many things had to be seen to while making sure they kept going the right way.

  But that night, out in the desert, when they made camp, old Z’Ydagg told everybody about the arrangements he wanted, and everybody, of course, agreed. When they set off next day it would be this way: he first, being the twentier (it’s true some twentiers prefer to walk in the rear, and others along with the people, and there are even some who ride on a horse or in a cart, but old Z’Ydagg always took the lead, declaring that the best twentiers had invariably done so since the beginning of time), without armed guards since he’d never needed them and why would he need them now? Immediately behind him would come Mistress Assyi’Duzmaül, with her servants and employees. Why her? Not because she was a woman, not because she was beautiful, young, desirable, since she wasn’t. And even if she had been, it wouldn’t have mattered to the old man. So, why her? Why not Mr. Pfalbuss, a likeable elderly gentlemen whom the twentier had known for years? Why? If anybody had asked Z’Ydagg, and the strange notion of questioning a twentier’s arrangements would occur only to someone crazy enough to risk expulsion from the caravan and being left alone without a guide in the desert, if anybody had asked, the old man would merely have answered, “Because.”

  Yet he had a reason. The woman worried him. He didn’t know her, but that wasn’t the problem; no guide can know every merchant on the roads of the Empire. She said she was a silk dealer. She might be, why not? She might not be, because she paid more attention to people than to the bales stamped with her mark. She said also that she was accompanying her merchandise this time because she suspected, was almost certain, that some of her employees were robbing her, and that too might be, why not? It would explain her constant vigilance. But on the other hand there are easier ways to catch a thief than accompanying a caravan on a long, hard road and doing almost without eating or sleeping in order to watch everything going on. And he didn’t like her name. It was a very complicated name. The old man would have bet a finger, a left-hand finger to be sure but still one of his own fingers, that her name was false. And that is why Mistress Assyi’Duzmaül, silk dealer, was to come right after him. After her, some other traders, two or three, it didn’t matter which, with their people. Fat Bolbaumis with his soldier boys, the rest of the merchants, the cook and his gear, and finally the loaders. But wait a moment, what about The Cat?
Where to put that impudent and restless boy? Bah, let him be wherever he liked, with the merchants or the soldiers or the lady, that’s it, so he wouldn’t bother people and get them listening to him about being an orphan and the strange things he had discovered weaving rugs and assisting a magician and fishing for pearls and the rest of his fantasies.

  The old twentier slept with one eye open, so he thought, and it was almost true, so that if anything happened in the caravan, or at the first hint of light if the night passed tranquilly, he got up, went over the campground, and had a bite to eat with whoever was on late-night guard. Only then, after he had a piece of biscuit and a draft of water in his belly, did he cup his hands round his mouth and call the alert. But that day, before dawn broke, the smell of fresh-made coffee woke him.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” he demanded.

  “Coffee,” said The Cat.

  “I’m asking you why the devil you’re making coffee at this hour.”

  “Because I want to drink some coffee,” said The Cat.

  “Insolent brat,” said the twentier.

  “It’s strong,” said The Cat, and held out a mug.

  The old man was so taken aback that he started to sip it slowly, and it really was good: hot, bitter, and thick.

  “Did I tell you I was an assistant in the palace cafeteria for a week?” The Cat asked, very serious.

  “You’ve already told me too many lies,” said the twentier.

  “But I was, honestly.”

  “If the Imperial Guards saw that rascally face of yours ten blocks away from the palace, they’d take a broom to you,” said the old man, no longer irate.

  “I’ll tell you how it was,” the boy said.

  “You’ll tell me nothing. And go call the night guard, right now.”

  “I told him he could go get some sleep.”

  The old man choked and coughed. “You what?” he roared when he could breathe again.

  “What’s going on?” asked Mistress Assyi’Duzmaül.

  “Coffee, dear lady!” said The Cat.

  “Let’s get one thing clear,” said the old man, while the big woman sipped her coffee very slowly.

  “Yes, let’s do that!” said The Cat with enthusiasm.

  Z’Ydagg sat silent a moment, thinking. A twentier doesn’t lose his temper, doesn’t shout, or get worked up, or strangle on hot coffee. A man to whom such things happen just because he’s run into something unexpected is not fit to be a twentier. Am I getting too old? he thought. But that’s stupid. On the endless roads of the deserts age is no handicap, just the opposite. A whole life of bodily and mental discipline bears fruit precisely in old age. But he’d been foolish. A bad moment. The stupid boy got on his nerves. And yet he liked the kid; he’d liked him from the moment he saw him coming as the caravan got under way: awkward yet assured, a rascal, yes, but the old man thought he saw something honest and generous in the comical face. That’s what he liked in him. If the brat hadn’t been so likeable even when he was boasting and bragging, he would have made him toe the line from the start and then there’d have been none of this getting up before he did, making coffee. Even if it was good coffee.

  “Here, one person gives orders,” the old man said.

  “Mr. Z’Ydagg, twentier of Mr. Bolbaumis’s caravan,” said The Cat.

  “That’s it. That didn’t need to be made clear. It was clear. But this, too: I give all the orders. All. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All means all: important and unimportant. For example, nobody can get up before I do and make coffee unless I’ve ordered it.”

  “Really? I can’t?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t like the coffee I make?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “All right, daddy, I won’t do it again.”

  The old man was angry for a second time this morning, but he managed to stay calm. “As for the matter of the night guard,” he said, “we won’t discuss that, because if we did I’d end up burying you both in the sand with only your noses out and leaving you there for the sun to roast you and the ants to eat you. Which is precisely what I will do next time you take one step without my permission.”

  The Cat laughed. “All right, daddy, I promise I’ll be good.”

  And don’t call me daddy, the old man thought, but didn’t say it. He looked at the silk dealer and saw her looking at him.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, “I’ll do whatever you say. I know what a caravan is.”

  Yes, she does, thought the old man who smelled lies a hundred miles away, indeed she does. And he went off a few paces and gave the wake-up call.

  The Cat didn’t do anything again that he hadn’t been told to do. Though he could hardly be described as peaceful and tranquil, at least he didn’t enrage the twentier or anybody else. He even earned the gratitude of the cook, and it’s well known that caravan cooks are irritable grouches, hard to handle and generally inclined to snarl. This cook, named Nonne, hated making coffee. That is, he liked brewing real coffee, proper coffee, the kind that issues slowly and artistically from the spigot of an apparatus of copper and glass, not the hasty stuff boiled over embers in a hole dug in the dry soil swept by the dawn wind of the desert. Nonne liked cooking for caravans, creating everything from practically nothing, turning salt meat into a tender and delicious dish with a piquant aftertaste. He liked making a soft, creamy porridge of dry grain, or amazing the travelers with merely a few fibrous roots and leaves that would have been bitter if he hadn’t handled them skillfully. He could even make good tea with the scanty water of the wells or their canteens. But coffee? No; coffee was worth making in the cities, the towns, houses where people live permanently, but not in the desert, on the road. So, after that first morning, Nonne thought and thought and finally spoke to the twentier, and Z’Ydagg told him all right, fine, no problem, it was even a good idea to give the boy a regular job and not keep him running here and there for every little task the men didn’t want to do. And from then on The Cat was in charge of making the coffee.

  And he did other things. He sang, for example. And it was he who discovered that one of Bolbaumis’s armed guards played the serel.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “Pipe down, kid,” the soldier said.

  “Is it a weapon?”

  The man didn’t answer.

  “It’s a funny shape for a weapon,” said The Cat.

  “I said, pipe down.”

  “I bet that’s a serel in there.”

  The man turned and looked at him. “Better mind your own business,” he said.

  “All right, all right, no big deal,” and The Cat went on forward till he reached Mistress Assyi’Duzmaül. “How come none of your children came with you, missis?” he asked her.

  “And who told you I had children?”

  “Nobody. But I thought so. Ladies usually have children, don’t they?”

  “Yes,” the woman said, and was silent a moment. “So, yes, I have seven children. But they’re busy, the older ones working, the younger ones studying. And anyhow I see no reason why I should bring anybody along when I travel.”

  After a while, she looked at him and said, “Tonight I’m going to give you one of my sleeping bags. I’ve got some warm ones. And you were cold last night.”

  But this woman never sleeps! thought old Z’Ydagg, listening to them. How did she know the boy was cold?

  That night the boy slept in a fine down bag, warm and comfortable. And the next night, he sang.

  He had a beautiful tenor voice, not very strong; a sweet voice that soared and dropped with ease; he sang about thieves and lovers. It was then that the armed guard opened his lumpy sack, took out the serel, tightened the strings, adjusted one or two ivory pegs, and played a few chords. Bolbaumis stared at him in astonishment. One of his guards playing the serel, what next? The soldier got the instrument tuned, played a cascade of notes, and began to accompany The Cat as he sang. Everybody el
se was in a circle round them listening, and one began to sway in time to the music, and another to clap, and they all ended up keeping the rhythm with their feet and head and clapping and laughing, till the old man said it was time to sleep.

  Next night The Cat sang again, and the soldier accompanied him on the serel, and even sang a couple of verses along with him.

  “I’ve never traveled with a caravan this cheerful,” one merchant said.

  “I’ve been with some,” said Pfalbuss, “where you’d think everybody was born deaf and dumb, and we couldn’t wait for it to get dark so we could sleep.”

  “Whereas the twentier has to tell us it’s bedtime,” said another, “as if we were children.”

  “More like a party than a caravan,” said another.

  “We’re all for parties,” said one of the younger merchants.

  “Let’s be serious,” said The Cat. “Somebody tell a sad story, a really really sad story.” He looked at the silk dealer.

  “I don’t know any stories,” she said. “I’m just a businesswoman.”

  “Daddy,” said The Cat, “won’t you tell us a really really sad story?”

  “There’s sadness enough in store for us,” said a merchant named Nayidemoub.

  “There’s always hope,” said another.

  “Louwantes was a good emperor,” sighed Bolbaumis.

  “Yes, he was,” Nayidemoub said, “but if his nephew succeeds him, we’re in trouble.”

  “Who says so?” another man asked. “Maybe he’ll turn out well too.”

  “Ha!” from fat Bolbaumis.

  “Look at the bright side,” the merchant insisted. “Why not? You never can tell how a man may turn out.”

  “Ha!”

  “And it could be,” the merchant went on, “he won’t even succeed to the throne.”