by David Weber
* * *
"How are you supplied?" Pahner asked. "If you don't mind my asking."
The relief column had attracted remarkably little attention as it passed through the large shanty town around the gate and the outer wall. If a war threatening their very survival was going on, the people of K'Vaern's Cove seemed not to have noticed.
The main thoroughfare on which they were traveling was packed. Only the force of guardsmen calling for way and physically pushing blockages aside permitted the caravan to keep moving, and the side streets were just as crowded, with carts or kiosks set up every few meters selling a mixture of products from food to weapons.
The city was packed onto the slopes surrounding the cove, and the surrounding hills virtually stopped the sea winds, which turned the city into a sweltering, breathless sauna even hotter than the Mardukan norm. The still air also trapped the scent of the streets, and it closed in on the column as it passed through the gate. The effluvia was a combination of the cooking and spices of the side streets and the normal dung smell of all Mardukan cities, subtly flavored with a hint of clear salt air and the rot smell which was common to every harbor in the known universe.
Most of the buildings, aside from the soaring bell towers, were low and made from stone or packed mud, with plaster walls which ranged from blinding white to a glaring clash of painted colors. It was the first place the humans had seen where extensive use had been made of pastels, and the combination of riotous colors, furnace heat, and heady smells dazed some of the Marines.
Single doorways fronted directly onto the street, and children darted out into traffic without heed. One particularly reckless youngster was almost turned into paste by Patty, but the flar-ta made a weird five-legged hop and somehow avoided treading on the scrambling waif.
The corners of the buildings all sported elaborate downspouts that led to large rainwater containers. Some of those had markings on them, and Pahner watched as a person dipped from one of them and dropped a metal coin into it. Clearly, someone had just made a sale, and he wondered for a moment why, of all the cities they'd visited, only K'Vaern's Cove seemed to have some sort of water rationing.
The same emphasis on providing water was apparent in the occasional larger pools they passed. The pools, slightly raised above the level of the street and about two meters across and a meter deep, ranged from five to ten meters in length and collected water from the larger buildings' downspouts. They were covered with half-lids and clearly were kept scrupulously clean, for the water in them was as clear as any spring, and they, too, had copper and silver coins on their bottoms.
"Supplied?" Kar turned to look at the human, then gave the handclap of a Mardukan shrug. "Poorly, in all fairness. And, no, I don't mind your asking. Gods know we've crossed swords with the League before, but I don't think they're less than allies now."
"Indeed," Rastar said. The Northern cavalryman grunted in harsh laughter. "Many's the war which we waged against the Cove, or the Cove against us, over its control of the Tam Mouth, or our control of the Northern trade. But that's all past, now. The League is no more, nor will it arise once again in any strength in our lifetime. We're all in this together.
"But tell me," he continued, "why are you short? Don't you have nearly unlimited storage under the Citadel?"
"Yes," the K'Vaernian general agreed. "But we don't keep the granaries filled to capacity in peacetime, because stock—"
A sudden, deep, rumbling sound, like the tolling of bronze-throated thunder, interrupted the Guard commander. All of the bells, in all of the towers, sang simultaneously, in an overwhelming outpouring of deep, pounding sound that swept over the city—and the astounded column—like an earthquake of music. But it was no wild, exuberant cacophony, for the bells rang with a measured, rolling grandeur, every one of them giving voice in the same instant. Four times they tolled, and then, as suddenly as they had begun to speak, they were silent.
The humans looked at one another, stunned as much by the abrupt cessation as by the sheer volume of the sound, and their companions from Diaspra seemed only a little less affected. Rastar and his Northern fellows had taken it in stride, however, and the native K'Vaernians seemed scarcely even to have noticed, but then Bistem Kar grunted a chuckling laugh.
"Forgive me, Prince Roger, Captain Pahner. It didn't occur to me to warn you."
"What was that?" Roger asked, digging an index finger into his right ear, where the echo of the bells seemed to linger.
"It's Fourth Bell, Your Highness," Kar told him.
"Fourth Bell?" Roger repeated.
"Yes. Our day is divided into thirty bells, or segments of time, and Fourth Bell has just passed."
"You mean you get that—" Roger waved a hand at the bell towers "—thirty times a day?!"
"No," Kar said in a tone the humans had learned by now to recognize as tongue-in-cheek, "only eighteen times. The bells don't chime at night. Why?"
Roger stared at him, and it was Rastar's turn to laugh.
"Bistem Kar is— What is that phrase of yours? Ah, yes! He's 'pulling your leg,' Roger. Yes, the bells sound to mark each day segment, but usually only the ones in the buildings actually owned by the city, not all of them!"
"True," Kar admitted, with the handclap which served Mardukans for an amused shrug, but then the titanic guardsman sobered. "We are at war, Prince Roger, and until that war is over, all of Krin's Bells will sound in His name over His city at the passing of each bell."
Roger and Pahner looked at one another expressionlessly, and Kar chuckled once more.
"Don't worry, my friends. You may not believe it, but you'll become accustomed more quickly than you can imagine. And at least—" he gave Rus From a sly look "—we won't be constantly pouring water over you!"
The cleric-artificer chuckled along with the others, and Kar returned his attention to the humans.
"But before the bells interrupted us, I believe, I was about to explain to you that we don't keep the granaries fully filled during peacetime because stockpiling like that hurts the grain trade, and we normally have sufficient warning of a war to purchase ample supplies in time. But this time the Boman came too quickly, and we were having the same problems with Sindi everyone else was. That bastard Tor Cant actually started stockpiling last season, which makes me wonder if his murder of the Boman chiefs was really as spontaneous as he wanted us to think. But he wasn't interested in sharing any of his surpluses, and he went as far as putting a hold on all grain shipments out of Sindi 'for the duration of the emergency.' We got in some additional stores from other sources before Chasten's Mouth was overrun, but not much. There's no real shortage, yet, but it will come. Many of the merchants are rubbing their hands in anticipation."
"What of Bastar?" Rastar asked, gesturing to the north. "I've heard nothing of their people."
"Almost all of them escaped to us when it was clear they couldn't hold against the Boman." Bistem Kar made a gesture of resignation and frustration. "Another drain on our supplies, both of grain and of water, but not one that we could in good conscience reject. And we'd had our problems with D'Sley, as well as all the other cities, but again . . ."
"One for all, and all for one," Pahner said.
"Indeed," the general agreed, and turned his attention back to the human. "But what is your place in all of this? I'm told that these long spears are your innovation, and the large shields. I can see their usefulness against the Boman axes. But why are you here? And involving yourselves in our plight?"
"It's not out of the goodness of our hearts," Roger said. "The full story is long and complicated, but the short answer is that we have to cross that—" he pointed to the sea beyond the harbor "—to reach the ocean, and then cross that to get back to our home."
"That's a problem," Kar said forebodingly. "Oh, you can get passage from here to the Straits of Tharazh if you must. It will be expensive, but it can be arranged. But no one will take you beyond the Straits to cross the Western Ocean. The winds would be against y
ou, and no one who's ever tried to cross the ocean has returned. Some people—" the K'Vaernian glanced sideways at Rus From "—believe that the demons which fill the ocean to guard the shores of the world island are to blame, but whatever the cause, no ship has ever succeeded in crossing it and returning to us. There's an ancient tale of one ship having arrived from the other side—a wreck, rather, for it had been torn to pieces by something. According to the tale, there was a lone, crazed survivor who babbled in an unknown tongue, but he didn't live long, and no one was ever able to determine what had destroyed the ship."
"Storm?" Pahner asked.
"No, not according to the tale," the general said. "Of course, it might be a fable, but there's an ancient log in one of the museums here. It's in a tongue no one I know of can read, but it's accompanied by what purports to be a partial translation—almost as old as the log itself—and you might find it interesting. The translation seems to describe monsters of some sort, and the tales of the ship's arrival here are very specific in saying that it had been bitten and torn by something."
"Goodness," From murmured provocatively. "You don't suppose it might have been one of those mythological demons, do you?"
"I don't know what it might have been," Kar admitted cheerfully. "Except that whatever it was, it must have been large. And unfriendly. Either of which would be enough to convince me to stay well clear of it, by Krin!"
"You know that there's something on the other side, though?" Roger asked.
"Oh, yes," the K'Vaernian replied. "Of course. The world is round, after all; the mathematicians have demonstrated that clearly enough, though not without argument from some of our, ah, more conservative religions. That means that eventually you must come back here, but the distance is immense. And in all honesty, there's never been much incentive for anyone to go mucking about in the open ocean. Quite aside from wind, wave, and possible sea monsters," he grinned at From, who chuckled back at him, "there's the problem of navigation. How does a seaman know where he is unless he can close the shore every so often and compare local landmarks to his charts? And what merchant would go voyaging beyond Tharazh? We know of no cities or peoples to trade with there, and we have—had, at least—all the trade we can service right here in the K'Vaernian Sea. As to what's happened to the one or two lunatics who have tried to cross it, no one truly knows, so it's a fertile subject for, um . . . imaginative speculation."
"Well, we'd heard that you're unable to sail across it," Pahner said, "but we've done quite a few things on this world that no one has ever done before."
"They crossed the Tarsten Mountains," Rastar interjected.
"No! Really?" Kar laughed. "And is the land beyond really filled with giant cannibals?"
"I think not," Cord said. The old shaman had a strong gift for languages, but without a toot of his own, he lacked the translator support the humans enjoyed, and the K'Vaernian general looked at him sharply at the sound of his pronounced and highly unusual accent.
"D'nal Cord is my asi," Roger said, "my, um, sworn companion and shield mate. He's from the People, who live in the Hurtan Valley. It's not only beyond the Tarsten Mountains, it's actually farther from the Tarstens than they are from here."
"Pretty close to a fourth of the way around the world from the Tarstens," Pahner agreed. "And the people on the far side of the Tarstens didn't look much different from you. No civan or turom, though."
"Truly, we live in a time of wonders," Kar said. "And I meant no offense to your people, D'nal Cord."
"And I took none," the asi said haltingly. "Far we have come, and much have I seen. Much is the same from one side to the other." He glanced around for a moment. "Although this is by far the largest city I've ever seen. Voitan was just as . . . alive before its fall, but it wasn't this large."
"Voitan?" Kar asked.
"A long tale," Roger said. "And a cautionary one."
"Aye," Cord agreed with a handclap of emphasis, and looked at the K'Vaernian levelly. "Voitan, as everyone knew, was invincible. Until the Kranolta."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Roger looked around the room and nodded in satisfaction. The space was relatively small but comfortable, placed on the seaward side of the citadel and looking out over the blue K'Vaernian Sea, and the sea breeze that blew in from the windows on that side blew back out through inner windows which overlooked a courtyard on the other side. The citadel's bell tower was less than fifty meters from those windows, and the prince winced inwardly at the thought of what it would be like whenever the K'Vaernians' "clocks" went off, but he was willing to accept that as the price of the windows. There wasn't anyplace in the entire city where he could realistically have hoped to escape the bells, anyway, and the breeze wafting through the room felt almost unbelievably good after the sweltering steambath of the city streets.
The chamber contained the ubiquitous low cushions and tables, but Matsugae had already set up his camp bed and acquired a taller table from somewhere. Together with his folding chair, it made for a comfortable place from which to contemplate their next steps.
The plan was simple. They would show the K'Vaern's Cove people some of the military technologies from humanity's bloody past which would be within reach of their current capabilities in return for a trip across the ocean. It had sounded reasonable when they worked it all out before leaving Diaspra, but Poertena had already given his opinion of the seaworthiness of the local boats, and it wasn't good. Roger's head was ringing with such phrases as "deck stiffness," "freeboard," and "jib sails," most of which he already knew from his own yachting days. Poertena, however, seemed to be a veritable mine of information on practical, sail-powered work boats, and that mine was saying "No Way."
So it looked like simply putting a better sail plan on one of the local boats might be out, which would mean months of time spent building new boats. Or at least refitting one of the local boats from the keel up.
The rest of the plan was beginning to look iffy, as well. They hadn't yet met with the local council, but Bistem Kar clearly felt that K'Vaern's Cove wasn't as unconquerable as Rastar and Honal had believed. If his attitude was shared by the Council in general, simply saying "Hey, here's a few tricks. Have fun, and we're out of here," might not work.
All of which sounded as if it might mean yet another battle, and Roger wasn't sure he was ready for that.
He gazed out over the sea and sighed. He'd spent most of his seventeenth summer blue-water sailing off of Bermuda, where, unlike Pinopa, sailing was the recreational province of the rich rather than a matter of economic survival. The blue-water races in the Atlantic were comradely competitions between members of the monetary elite and their handpicked crews, and the yachts used bore as little resemblance to what was needed here as a race-flyer bore to a hover-truck, but given the choice between sailing a cargo sloop through a Mid-Atlantic gale and battling the Boman, Roger was sure what his answer would be. Even with the possibility of sea monsters thrown in for good measure.
Someone knocked on the door, and he turned towards it. The guard outside was Despreaux, and she refused to meet his eye when she opened the door to let Matsugae enter. The incident in Ran Tai still lay between them like a minefield, and he had to get past it. Ran Tai had proven that it wasn't smart to get too close to the troops, but it was even less smart to have a bodyguard who was poisonously angry with you. And it wasn't as if Despreaux could ask for a transfer, so, sooner or later, he had to talk to her about it and try to smooth the waters.
Besides which, he was still deeply confused about his feelings for her.
He sighed at the thought, then smiled again as he heard Matsugae puttering around behind him. The little clucks as the valet straightened the eternal mess were soothing.
"Are you glad to be out of the kitchens, Kostas?"
"It was a very interesting experience, Your Highness," the valet replied, "but, all things considered, yes, I'm quite glad. I can always go back and putter there if the mood takes me, and it's not as if I'm really sti
ll needed at this point." With over five thousand total persons, human and Mardukan, with the column, cooks were easy enough to find.
"But we'll all miss your atul stew," Roger joked.
"I'm afraid you'll just have to suffer, Your Highness," Matsugae responded. "It's funny, really. I gave that recipe to one of the Diasprans, and he just stared at me in shock. I suppose it's the equivalent of Bengal tiger stew to humans. Not what they'd consider normal fare."
" 'Skin one Bengal tiger . . .' " Roger murmured with a chuckle.
"Exactly, Your Highness. Or perhaps, 'First, fillet the Tyrannosaurus.' "
"I can just imagine Julian's stories about this little jaunt once we get home," the prince said.
"Perhaps, but the jaunt isn't over yet," the servant retorted. "And on that subject, you have the meeting this afternoon with the K'Vaernian Council. I obtained some cloth in Diaspra. It's not as fine as dianda—the threads are somewhat coarser, and the weave isn't as tight. However, it made an admirable suit, and I found enough dianda to line it and provide two or three dianda shirts to go with it."
Roger glanced at the proffered garments and nodded, but he also cocked one eyebrow quizzically.
"Black? I thought you always said black was only for weddings and funerals."
"So I did, but it was the best dye Diaspra had available." The valet looked uncomfortable for a moment, then shrugged. "It's what they make their better priestly vestments from."
"Works for me," Roger responded with a smile. "You know, you really have been a tremendous boon throughout this entire hike, Kostas. I don't know what we would've done without you."
"Oh, you would've made do," the valet said uncomfortably.
"No doubt we would have, but that doesn't mean we would have made do as well as we have."
"I suppose it is fortunate that I learned a little something from all of the safaris on which I've accompanied you," Matsugae conceded.
"A vast understatement, Kosie," the prince said fondly, and the valet smiled.
