Travel Light

by Naomi Mitchison

  Here the rats hurried her; they could see in the dark, and they were frightened. But, for all she stooped and held her arms in front of her face, she kept on banging her head and soon she was crying as she went. The drain turned a corner, went down, the rats squeaked encouragingly—there were several of them now. She went on; by the stink of it she was in worse than horse-dung here; she gasped and hurried, was cheered by the scampering rats at her side. Here and there was a shaft that let down light and fresh air; she wanted to climb out, afraid the stink would be too much for her and she would fall over into it. But still the rats hurried her, till at last she saw light ahead and staggered on, a long way it seemed, and came out below the city wall, near the sea, among rubbish and brambles. Flies swarmed. Broken pots jagged at her ankles. There was a dead animal of some kind. But the rats danced and jumped round her, whisking their tails, then scampered back into the drain. Halla went down to the sea and washed and washed, scrubbing at herself with sand, and came out in wet tatters. Then she wondered if she dared go back to the others or if the hunt was there too.

  At last she saw the blunt wings of a circling kite and whistled to her. Down out of the sky she came, the handsome brown scavenger, bringing a stink of garbage with her. Halla asked her to see if there was a crowd of men near their house or any sign of trouble. The kite swung off in easy curves and Halla sat among the brambles, hoping it would be all right. The kite came back. “Many men have been there,” she said, “and your men have gone.”

  For a moment Halla felt gladness like that of the kite soaring up, alone in her circles. No more need she be troubled for them and their treasure; no more need she be hurt by the heart-wound of Tarkan Der for Sweetfeather. Now she could be travelling light as All-Father bade her. She gave a close and bearish look about her. But this was not wild country; there was no food here for the taking; the walls of Micklegard towered behind her, watching with eyes. Behind the walls was food, but there taking was thieving, and thieving was dangerous. You needed to dive like the kite who stole meat from the butcher’s stall or off the trays that the sweet-sellers carried on their heads, to dive and away on wings. Feet were too slow.

  Better, then, to go back behind the wall and find the men of Marob. She stood regarding the wall. Over it leaped the winged horse with Steinvor, a dead hero under her arm. The horse came down beside her, neatly planting its hoofs so as to avoid a rubbish heap, and closed its wings. “I thought it was you,” said Steinvor, kicking her feet out of the stirrups, crossing one leg over the other and rearranging the hero so that he hung down tidily at each side; his skull had been knocked in, perhaps by a stone. “All-Father sent you a long way,” she observed.

  “I came here myself!” said Halla.

  “Oh, you all think that,” said Steinvor, “but we know. We’re under orders. It’s all there, all in the weaving. As the seed falls, so grows the tree. Look what I’ve got now.”

  “His brains are dripping out,” said Halla rather disgustedly.

  “He won’t need them,” said Steinvor. “Never did really. He was one of the Varangians, the Emperor’s heroes, you’ve seen them.”

  “He made something out of it,” said Halla, looking at the great golden collar that now dragged on his fallen neck.

  “Oh, yes. He came here dragons’-nesting. Believing everything he was told up north. And it all worked out till this street row, when he axed a shoemaker who was trying to get the shutters up on his shop and the shoemaker’s wife dropped an iron pot full of meal on his head. He’d got a new helmet and it didn’t fit. If he’d stuck to his old one he’d have been all right. Serve him right, dolling himself up!”

  But Halla was frowning. “A shoemaker?” she asked.

  “Of course. It was in your street. When the blue mob—that’s Iron Gate, you know—came after you.”

  “But what had Iron Gate to do with the races?”

  “Oh, plenty. And by that time he’d heard about your men.”

  “Has he killed them?” asked Halla, and suddenly, for the first time, she really hated Iron Gate. Before that he had only been a name in someone else’s story. But now, if he had killed her men, it would need to be her story.

  Steinvor reached over and pulled a feather out of her horse’s wing and picked her teeth with it. “Oh, no,” she said. “The other one got hold of them in time. The Argyris. Father John told him they could spot the winners every time and he was interested. But they’re in a state about you. They think you’ve been killed. Tarkan Der tried to get away to look for you. They’ve tied him up now.”

  “Then I must go and find them,” said Halla. She did not like hearing of people being tied up.

  “There’s no hurry. The Argyris crowd won’t hurt them. In fact, they’re going to get to the Emperor now. You know, the way they wanted. So they won’t need you.”

  “I must be their mouth.”

  “Oh, the old one can speak Greek well enough for all they want. Why don’t you come and join us, Halla?”

  “You asked me before. I don’t like heroes.”

  “Oh, you’d get used to them. But, of course, All-Father may have other plans for you.”

  “All-Father has forgotten all about me. I was only a small fly stuck in a web in a wood. He pulled me out and let me fly away.”

  “Perhaps. Well, I’d better take this one back or they’ll wonder what’s keeping me. If you want to find the Marob men, go through that gate and on until you come to the small fruit market. Then you can ask.”

  “Yes, there are sure to be some rats in the fruit market.”

  “You could even ask one of the vegetable women; you look like a little village slut. And smell like one. Comes of consorting with rats. Worse than dragons, they are.”

  “Do I smell?” said Halla, looking worriedly at the tears in her dress. She had washed the worst of the dirt out of it and now it had damp patches and salt stains everywhere. And the smell stuck.

  “Yes, my dear! I tell you what you can do. Take this man’s cloak and it’ll cover everything.”

  But Halla stepped back. “It did me no good before, taking dead hero’s gold.” For she felt a dragonish twinge towards the gold fringes and clasps of the cloak and did not want it in herself just now.

  “Oh, well. As you like. I must be off.” Steinvor sat back in the saddle and jerked at the reins. The horse opened one wing, then the other, and took off over the sea. Halla wrapped All-Father’s cloak over the dress; the dirt seemed to have washed better out of it, and even the smell. She went through the gate, her head down, the cloak folds held tightly. She got to the fruit market and had no trouble at all in spotting a rat climbing about among the half-rotten fruit chucked into the main gutter of the market, and everyone was too busy shouting how good and cheap their fruit was, or shouting back that it was bad and dear, so that they never noticed her asking her way and the rat running ahead a moment into the crooked, narrow side street with the little shops that led into another narrow and empty street, this time between high walls with trees and creepers hanging over them. And so she came to the side door of the great house of Alexius Argyris, that spread across the whole angle between this quarter and the next.

  There in a small room, sitting unhappily on a bench, were the men of Marob, and Tarkan Der had his hands tied behind him and his face marked with tears. A guard was sitting on a stool, eating sunflower seeds and humming a tune to himself. Tarkan Der cried out as Halla Godsgift came in and the other two ran to her and kissed her. She asked the guard to untie Tarkan Der. “No fear,” he said, “he’d knock me down if I did, the bastard. That’s what he did before.”

  “He wouldn’t now,” said Halla. “He only wanted me, and here I am.” So after a bit of grumbling the man untied Tarkan Der, and they all sat down again and went on waiting. By and by the guard gave them some of his sunflower seeds.

  Chapter Five

  The Master Dragon

  Father John came in and seemed more than delighted to see Halla, but shocked at her clo
thes. He had a new dress sent for and put upon her, but took great care not to touch her cloak. Then he took them through to the inner court where the Lord Alexius Argyris was sitting on a marble seat between bushes sweet and dark with roses. There was a pool beside him with fishes; sometimes he crumbled white bread for the fishes and sometimes for a crowd of doves that jostled and swore at one another in furious dove language under the rose bushes and in the air.

  He looked at the three men and Halla as though they were another kind of animal, and spoke to Father John about them as though they could not understand. Father John bowed continuously, but the others had only bowed on coming in. Part of what they said was very difficult to understand, because it dealt with people and arrangements about which not even Roddin knew anything, and Halla did not care. At last he said to Father John: “Ask her about the races.” And Father John said to Halla that His Excellence wished to know, if it was not sinful to ask such a thing, how she could tell the winner of a race.

  “I ask the horses,” said Halla, who was amusing herself by listening to the doves, whose language was so different from their looks.

  Father John bowed nervously and repeated her answer, “She is mad,” said the Lord Alexius, “but ask her for the next winner.”

  “How can I tell that till I have seen the horses themselves?” said Halla. “And perhaps they wouldn’t do what they say. Sometimes the charioteers pull them back and stop them from winning. You ought to ask the charioteers to stop that, Lord,” she added. “It spoils the races for the horses.”

  Lord Alexius laughed. “Perhaps she is not so mad after all. What do you think of her, Foxy?” For this was the shocking name which he used to the priest of God, Father John.

  Father John drew himself up and said: “Her madness is from on high.” And he signed himself.

  So did the three men from Marob, and in time, Lord Alexius, but lazily and flourishing the rings on his fingers. He looked at them again and turned to Father John: “You think their story will stand?” Father John nodded. “Then tell them they are to go to the Palace tomorrow. And feed them,” he added, “and let them remember who has helped them. Later on I shall make the girl talk to the horses. That will be something new.”

  He turned his back and walked out. Father John took them to a better room with carpets and hangings, and ordered slaves to bring food and wine, which was better than any they had eaten all this time, and he ordered Tarkan Der’s sword, which had been taken from him, to be given back. Then he told them how, out of his Christian charity, the Lord Alexius Argyris would take them before the Emperor and they could tell their story and justice would be done and the innocent succoured. And they thanked him, but Roddin felt in his heart that he was not as glad about this as he would have been at the beginning. Nor yet as certain what would come of it. Nor yet even as certain that, supposing things worked out well, it would be for any kind of right reason.

  Father John pressed them to eat, and especially to drink, more, and carefully tried to get Halla to tell exactly what she did about the races. Halla made no mystery about talking to the horses, but she did not want to tell about her difficulties with Day-Star, in case they might try to separate him and his charioteer. She felt that this was just the kind of thing which might be done here. Anyhow, Father John did not believe her; he could not believe in anything so simple. But perhaps the Marob men did. After he had gone she told them how she had escaped through the drain, but did not say that the rats had helped her. It was queer, but most people disliked rats, although in so many ways rats behaved the same. “We were afraid they had killed you,” said Roddin, “for all you are protected. But they come between God and His ways and will, in this place.”

  “For all their churches,” said Tarkan Der. “Even the bricks have rottenness in them. A man told me you were killed, and for a little while I did not believe in God. And I did not forgive my enemies.”

  “God help us,” said Kiot, “I wish we were out of here.”

  “And the thing done we are here for,” said Roddin. “Sometimes I wonder—if we had known how it would be—”

  “How long,” said Tarkan Der, “and no news.”

  “You will go back to her, son,” said Roddin. “If there is danger, she will be hidden. You know how many friends you have.”

  “If there is any kind of warning,” said Tarkan Der, “but if they come at night—and take her away—O God!”

  “Let us pray,” said Kiot, “that this cup pass from you and from all of us.” So they knelt and prayed. Halla knelt with them and thought of Steinvor, and the rats, and the cleverness and beauty of the swooping kite.

  The next day a big covered litter, carried by eight men with two spares, was brought into the courtyard, and the three men and Halla told to get into it. Then the curtains were drawn; they felt themselves lifted, jolted, moving. Tarkan Der tried to see out through a chink, but a hand outside pulled the curtains sharply together. Inside the litter it got very hot. The men of Marob in their thick clothes sweated and worried. Tarkan Der killed all the flies, one after the other. Halla watched him; she had no great feeling for flies; you could not want to share any of their qualities. Roddin stuck his fingers through his beard. “When we get to the Emperor,” he said, “the first thing is to make certain that he knows we are sent by all the people of Marob, not only ourselves.”

  “The first thing,” said Tarkan Der bitterly, “is to remember all Father John told us about bowing and kissing the floor and behaving like animals.”

  “No animal kisses the floor,” said Halla, “it is only men.” Tarkan Der laughed and put his arm round her. She did not mind. They were all glad he was laughing.

  Kiot said: “We do not know what will have been said about us. Anything may have been said. It will all have been mixed up with this street fight. The Emperor is bound to have been told about that, at least, with his guards being in it.”

  “I spoke a little with one of them,” said Tarkan Der. “He says he is going away from here soon. He is going to another city called Holmgard, as soon as he has treasure enough here.”

  So there were some who did get treasure, Halla thought. But was he a hero or did he mean it to be true treasure—dragon treasure? Had he a cave in his mind? “Where is Holmgard?” said Roddin.

  “North. North. Beyond where we are. Beyond the Red Riders. He said there is snow there for five months in the year. There is another name for it; the folk there call it Novgorod. And the Emperor’s law does not run there. They have a rule of their own.”

  “That would be good,” said Roddin.

  “There was a time,” Kiot said, “when we believed that the Emperor’s rule also meant the rule of God. It was what the first priest said. My grandfather Niar died because that was true then.”

  “Or because he thought it was. Certainly he died because of what he believed to be good. If we had not come here we might be believing it still.”

  “And now,” said Tarkan Der, “now at the best we lose a bad Governor and get perhaps a good one. But we shall not be able to believe that he comes from God. The people of Marob will welcome him as the Ambassador of God. But we shall know that it is not that at all. We have become separated from the others.”

  “If things had gone on in the old ways,” said Roddin, “you might have been Corn King of Marob, Tarkan Der.”

  “I might,” he said. “Yes, Roddin, I have thought of that.” And he dug his face down into one of the cushions of the jolting litter.

  Now there was a halt and a challenge and the jangling sound of soldiers. The litter was put down, but still there was no chance of plucking the curtains apart and seeing where they were. The litter was taken up and this time they were jolted and tilted up steps, falling against one another. Then they were set down and allowed to get out. They were in a long, barrel-vaulted hall with painted sides where horsemen stiffly pranced, larger than life, red-fleshed and black-eyed; huge hunted hares galloped across spear-pointed grasses. Ahead there were curtains h
anging in still folds. They looked at one another and whispered. Roddin took the bone comb out from under his belt and pulled it through the stiff grey hairs of his beard, then passed it round. Halla, jagging at the snarls in her own hair, thought there must still be plaster in it.

  Father John came in, to tell them that the moment was come. And they must remember the prostration, the advance on knees only. “Let me keep your cloak,” he said to Roddin, “it will be easier.” And he took their heavy felt cloaks, edged, Marob fashion, with other colours of felt and shells sewn into patterns at the corners. But when he came to Halla, she stepped back, saying “No,” and he did not dare to insist, for he knew when others had the thing in their spirit which he did not have himself. “Come,” he said.

  Beyond the curtains they went for a few steps in almost darkness, on a floor sloping up, then suddenly in light. Although outside it was a hot and cloudless morning, yet within curtains were drawn and candles blazed on an amazing glitter of colour, the solid blue of lapis, the green of malachite, the veined purple of porphyry, and everywhere gold in whatever shapes could be made out of it, tall candlesticks, door-handles, small fountains, swinging lamps, scent bowls, in this lighted cave, the cave indeed of the Master Dragon, thought Halla. Father John whispered “Now—down!” And all went on their knees and advanced crawling or bowing towards the same little man in heavy robes whom Halla had seen at the races. Still his eyes did not look at anyone, but always beyond them. Kiot, also seeing this, thought sharply that not so had Jesus looked at mankind, not so the Corn Kings.

  At last they were kneeling close to him on a rug woven with fabulous birds; they could see his feet in gold-sewn purple leather boots, but he was still two steps up from them on his throne. And on the first step stood the Lord Alexius Argyris with a parchment in his hand. Behind them a secretary in a long green coat braided with black was standing ready to take notes, pen in hand, ink-well at his belt.