The Blue Hawk

by Peter Dickinson

  Kalavin’s mouth fell open. He cut short a snort of surprise, stared again, nodded and turned to the charioteer.

  “All right, Atholin,” he said. “Put the horses away. Our quarters are going to be pretty cramped if my father’s here. Make the best arrangements you can. Come with me, boy.”

  Tron needed almost to run to keep up with Kalavin’s eager stride. He’d expected simply to be taken aside to explain the General’s arrival in privacy, but Kalavin was evidently going somewhere, and talked excitedly as he walked.

  “Sinu, but I’m glad to see you! The king … he wouldn’t understand how I failed to get you out of that barge.”

  “You couldn’t have done anything, My Lord. I saw that.”

  “Exactly! Well, I hope you’ll tell him! I’ve tried to explain but he won’t listen. It’s as though I’d broken an Obligation to him—I suppose in a way I did, but it wasn’t like that. And he’s been behaving since then—not just to me, either—oh, I don’t know—as though he’d never be lucky again. This way.”

  Corridors, courtyards, arcades. Walls that in the Temple would have been bare were hung with deep-colored carpets; strange, heavy scents seemed to float out of certain doors they passed. At some entrances elegant young men, courtier-sentries, stopped them, more to break the boredom of their guard duty by chatting with Kalavin than to question his right to pass; but behind the chat Tron sensed a tension and wariness, a sour echo to Kalavin’s eager optimism. At last they reached a round-arched passage where five men sat on stools, whispering over a game of dice. One of them, a black-bearded official wearing a long blue-and-gold robe, looked up at Kalavin’s step, frowned and shook his head.

  “Wait here, boy,” said Kalavin.

  The official rose as he strode forward. A discussion began, but in whispers so low that Tron could hear a woman’s voice singing somewhere beyond the group. Kalavin became stiff and angry, gesturing once or twice toward Tron. The dice-players rose and joined in the argument. Tron could see Kalavin’s problem—if he was out of favor with the King, these courtiers would be reluctant to let him through, and there was no question of explaining who Tron really was, or how he had traveled in the Dead King’s coffin. At length the blue-robed official beckoned. As Tron walked forward he heard this man saying, “… on your head be it, Kalavin.”

  “On my head be it, My Lord. And let everyone witness that if the King rebukes My Lord, I will forfeit to him the stewardship of Bastaan Canals. You’d better go alone, boy. I’ll take that hawk.”

  Tron had almost forgotten the crested sparrowhawk he was carrying. Nervous and bewildered, he passed it to Kalavin, then walked through the arch at the end of the passage into a small arcaded courtyard. A slow fountain trickled at its center; gummy-scented flowers dangled from baskets hung between the pillars, and under the arcade itself dusk was already halfway to dark. He walked toward the sound of the singing, which seemed to float in among the fret-carved stone and then drift away upward to the darkening sky. More nervous than ever, he stole along the marble tiles and round the corner of the arcade.

  The King was lolling on a mound of cushions in the next corner, his left hand idly stroking the black hair of the singer who sat cross-legged at his side and with pale fingers caressed a small harp, making a sound so soft that only the two of them could have discerned the faint, rainy notes behind her voice. But there was something about his pose at odds with the mood of idleness and luxury, and the moment Tron’s movement caught his eye he jerked himself up, his face harsh with fury and amazement, but also a sort of eagerness, as though he welcomed the chance to pour out his frustration on this intruder. Then the fury died, leaving only the amazement, and he came striding forward with outstretched arms, his whole being seeming to pulse with pleasure in the living instant.

  “I was afraid you would not know me, Majesty,” said Tron in a low voice.

  “I would know you in the cave of that kind woman,” said the King, speaking even lower. “Come and sit with me. Don’t say anything for the moment. No spyholes cover this corner, but voices carry among stonework. Namuthaa will make us a screen of sound.”

  He turned and called to the singer “Ah, my love, any more music like that will melt me into a pool of honey. Sing something a bit more bracing—it’s a long time since I heard Dana and Tribathu.”

  He settled back onto the cushions; Tron knelt beside him; the woman, pouting slightly, slipped onto her right hand a silk glove with fingernails of bone and began to pluck at the wires, drawing out a wild and clashingly metallic cataract of music. The King smiled at her. She threw back her head and began on a long and wailing note.

  “Ohay, Tribathu! Ohay, Tribathu!

  The soldiers of Dana creep out of the marsh.

  They take the cows from your pasture, Tribathu.

  They take your daughter who watched them, Tribathu.

  Away through the twisting tracks of the marsh.”

  “Ah, it’s good to see you!” whispered the King. “When Kalavin told me what had happened I felt … oh, it’s difficult to say … like that emptiness when you lose a favorite hawk … but worse, far worse. I thought I’d never see you again until I made my journey to that kind woman, and suddenly you walk under the archways. It’s like meeting somebody in a dream. Tell me where you’ve been.”

  “In the far south, Majesty. But when I was there I found a man who’d crossed the Peaks of Alaan. He’d come from a country called Falathi. He’d come to see you. He was carrying something he called a Red Spear.…”

  The King’s hand shot out and gripped Tron fiercely by the wrist.

  “An Ambassador from Falathi invoking the Red Spear Treaty! Where is he now?”

  “The General of the Southern Levies took him into the Temple to make offerings.”

  “How long ago?”

  “O was almost setting.”

  “Well … there’s time to hear the song out. Tell me what you know.”

  The woman’s voice echoed off the darkening masonry as she sang the tragedy of Tribathu’s daughter, trapped between her love for a swampland outlaw and her duty to show her father the paths through the marshes. Under this screen of sound Tron whispered his story, while the king listened calm-faced but nodding occasionally where a detail confirmed his own knowledge.

  “Falathi’s in the Obligations,” he said when Tron had finished. “So are your tribesmen in the ravines. But these Mohirrim are new to me.… Where’s the Lord General? He should have been here by now.… Go quietly along to the entrance. Fetch Kalavin and my Chamberlain—the one in blue and gold—bring them round by this side of the arcade.…”

  Tron crept away and returned with the two nobles, Kalavin almost singing with happiness at his return to favor, the Chamberlain frowning. Tron himself felt puzzled and disturbed. After the first shock of gladness at the King’s greeting, which had lasted while he told his story, he now began to feel once more the menace of coming events. Unconsciously he had supposed that once he had reached the King he would be safe under his protection, but he’d found the King himself having to hide and creep. Were even the Gods afraid of this place? Was that why They had come no farther on the journey? At any rate, They were not here. Men had taken over these halls and corridors just as lizards and bats had taken over the Temple of Tan, and just like lizards and bats, men scurried around in these crannies and tunnels, working in the dark their own mean little purposes.… And now Tron was going to have to hide and scurry with the rest. Nothing ever ends, he thought. I finish one task and find it’s only the beginning of another. No, nothing ends until we go to Aa, and perhaps that will be just another beginning.

  At a sign the nobles knelt by the King. In the ballad Tribathu’s daughter led her father’s men toward the ambush Dana had prepared.

  “My lords,” whispered the King, “I have discovered that I am watched in most parts of the Palace. We can’t be seen here, but our voices may be heard. Your father, Kalavin, has brought an Ambassador from Falathi, to invoke the Red S
pear Treaty—that’s in your Obligations, isn’t it?—and my guess is the priests are delaying them in the Temple, and if they spend the night there they won’t live to see the dawn. I want you two to stay here, talk, laugh, listen to Namuthaa’s singing as if I were with you, after a while begin to behave as though I were growing impatient, send to the gate for news of the General and the Ambassador, let any listeners know that we are aware of their coming.… Kalavin, here is my shoulder buckle. Lord Chamberlain, you are witness that by this gift I appoint the Lord Kalavin to be my regent to fulfill my Obligation to Falathi under the Red Spear Treaty, supposing I don’t get back. In that case the first thing you’ve got to do is demand to see the One of Sinu—he’ll tell you what to do after that—Tron, come with me. I feel in my bones we must hurry.”

  It was now almost dark. As Tron followed the King through the shadowed archways he heard behind him the harpstrings weeping the tears of Tribathu’s daughter for her dead father and her dead lover. The King chose a tortuous route. Tron guessed that he was avoiding not only spyholes but also places where there were likely to be courtiers on duty. Often there were not even torches flaring in the walls, and they climbed a stair or strode down a corridor in total darkness. At last they came to a long hall whose roof was supported by a grove of delicate pillars. It was unlit, but the last of dusk seeped in through the tall windows.

  “Now,” whispered the King, “this is what we’ve got to do.…”

  “Aren’t we watched, Majesty? This feels like the sort of place …”

  The King gave a muffled snort of amusement.

  “You’re right,” he said. “But they don’t come here, and they’ve blocked up the spyholes. This room is used for the Dance of Tan, which my wives do—thin, gauzy clothes and long floating veils in and out among the pillars. I’m the only man allowed to see it. Very pretty, very disturbing for a priest to watch, even through a spyhole. So they blocked them up. Now, listen. I must go to that room above the Gate of Saba, the one where they took you when you’d removed the Blue Hawk at the Renewal of my father’s soul. That’s where they always hold their secret councils. I’ve got to know what they’re planning. That means you’ve got to go and tell the One of Sinu what’s happening.”

  “Alone!”

  “It’s not as bad as it sounds. I’ve discovered that very few priests know the secret ways. Of those the Major Priests will be at the Council, and at least one more will be watching the courtyard where he thinks I still am. They can move very silently but they don’t usually bother—they’re too confident. If they meet another priest in the secret ways they don’t chatter, they just exchange a password. One of them says, ‘She rules the moon,’ and the other one answers, ‘But She is not the moon.’ Got it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You understand about the One of Sinu? Once he’s got reason to believe that a cause of war may have arisen he’s got an absolute right to go where he wants and make any inquiries he wants. He’ll jump at the chance. I told you how the order of Sinu was being downgraded by the other orders. He knows—they all know—that if he proves a cause of war then he can order the Horn of War to be blown, and after that the hymns of Sinu take precedence over everything, and nothing can stop me raising my levies. The Red Spear is a cause of war, in itself.…”

  “But it’s come. There’s no need …”

  “Give them a night to work in and they’ll somehow make it not have come. I don’t know how. Now, listen.…”

  Tron had spent half his life learning how to coil away in his mind long and detailed sets of instructions. The King had only to repeat his directions twice—numbers of paces, turnings, stairs—and Tron knew them. He nodded. The King turned to a bas-relief of Tan dancing with the river as her veil, carved into the wall behind the black and silver throne at the end of the room. He seized the tail of one of the sturgeon that danced around her, twisted it inward and up, and swung the slab round. Without hesitation he stepped into the slit of sheer blackness beyond, waited for Tron to follow, and soundlessly closed the stone.

  “She rules the moon,” he whispered.

  “But She is not the moon,” answered Tron with a hammering heart.

  The King grunted and was gone, while Tron stood shuddering in the blackness. He felt that if he stirred a foot he would stumble into a plummeting hole, if he reached out a hand it would touch some clinging web at whose center lurked … he didn’t make a picture of the horror that hung there, but it took him all his willpower to stretch out a hand and feel nothing but dry air and then clean stone. It was no use praying. The Gods were elsewhere. This was something he had to do without help, because the King had asked him. But just as if it were a hymn he began to repeat the set of directions the King had given him. Fourteen paces … It was eighteen, so timid were his steps, but there was the slit opening to the left. Five paces (bolder now). Stairs. He went up them on hands and knees. At the top dim light floated, where a spyhole opened on some courtyard. The black beyond seemed like wall, which he had to force himself into. Turnings, steps, ramps, and at last a vast reach of faint-lit passage. Now he was nearly there.

  By his gropings and creepings Tron had reached the upper story of the west side of the Great Courtyard. This was a long barrack of a building leaning on a central spine of masonry which stretched its whole length. Down the center of this spine ran the hidden corridor. In the series of rooms on either side of it lived and slept the priests of several orders, each order totally separate from the next. Thus no doors pierced the spine, and the hidden corridor could run level and straight. Normally it would have been as dark in here as it had been in the black windings through which Tron had crept, but at this moment Aa was following O down into the west, and Her light, shining horizontal across the dunes, pierced through the windows of the dormitories that faced the desert and then into the series of spyholes that made sure that no priest could even sleep unwatched.

  Knowing this light would not last, Tron moved swiftly down the corridor, instinctively ducking below each bar of light so that even Aa should not see him pass. Halfway down he found a spyhole that was in shadow, so he paused to check his progress. He peered through it into a boys’ dormitory, with its line of tall slit windows opposite the row of huddled rectangles where the boys slept on their mattresses; the pure curve of a bowl of offering was silhouetted on each sill; at the center of the room the pale beams glittered off the jewels on the statue of a hawk-headed God. Suddenly it was as if Tron had been looped back in time. This was his own dormitory where, on just such a night, he had woken on one particular mattress, heard a shuffle of cloth in the stillness, and seen the first slit of silver blank out. The boys, already deep in their sweetwater dreams, slept unstirring. But something moved. A shuffle of cloth.

  All Tron’s senses, tense with darkness, reached for the sound. It was not in the dormitory but in the tunnel behind him, a faint movement of robes, steadily approaching. Crouching below the bars of light, Tron hurried on, hoping that the priest’s own movements would cover any sound he might make. Was this man simply patrolling the secret ways? Had he come to watch the One of Sinu, to prevent any attempt to reach him? Yes. Then what could Tron do? Nothing for the moment, except race on, in silence and darkness, keeping ahead.

  With a thump in his chest he realized that the rustlings had stopped. He froze, sure he had been heard, and that the man had halted to listen. Then, looking back, he saw a new light glimmer, a tall slit that widened, vanished, returned, narrowed, and stayed. A secret door, which the priest had passed through and left ajar. Tron scuttled back and peeped through a spyhole. He saw a dormitory. Straight in front of him the lion-headed statuette of the War-God Sinu stood black against Aa’s silver. Blacker even than that, a robed shape slid past the slit windows.

  Tron raced to the door and peered through. Few boys were chosen for Sinu these days, so the priest stole past empty places to the end where (if arrangements were the same here as they had been in the order of Gdu) would be first the cell of t
he One of Sinu, then cells of three or four senior priests of the order, then the dormitory of the ordinary confirmed priests. A passage ran between the inner wall and the cells, joining the two dormitories. The priest paused here, almost invisible, but Tron saw the faint gleam of his face as he peered back down the dormitory, perhaps checking that none of the boys had stirred. Then he vanished.

  Tron slid through the door and crept across the dormitory, his bare feet silent on the stone. Peeping round the door of the first cell, he saw the priest kneeling by the side of a low bed, reaching over it toward the sleeper’s face. For an instant he stood, helpless. There was no hope of his fighting a priest of Aa, armed with a sacrificial knife and expert in the deadly dance called Flying Shadows. He must get help.

  As he crept into the next cell the man on the bed sat suddenly bolt upright. He must have been already awake.

  “Who’s there?” he snapped.

  “A priest of Aa has come to take the One of Sinu in his sleep,” whispered Tron. “He’s there now.”

  The man thrashed out of his cot in a bound and rushed into the passage. He paused for an instant at the door into his master’s cell, then shouted “Wake, Sinu! Wake!”

  He was still shouting as he charged into the cell.

  Questioning voices rose behind Tron. Bare feet slapped stone. The grunts of struggle rose from the cell of the One of Sinu, and then Tron found himself carried forward by a rush of bodies to the cell door. Two men in nightshifts pushed past him and joined the dim-seen struggle. A heavy, dazing odor drifted out of the room. Then the stragglers convulsed and fell apart, the three priests of Sinu backing against the bed as if to defend their master, and the black-robed priest standing by the window, outlined against the last light of Aa. He pulled the cowl back from his face and took from the pouch of his robe a small object whose lid he carefully prized up.

  “Breathe shallow, my brothers,” he said in a gentle voice, then lowered his head, sniffed deeply and closed the lid. Turning to the desert he began to chant.